Dartmouth Basketball Team Could Change NCAA Forever: ‘It Will Absolutely Kill College Sports,’ Senator Says

Over the past year, unions have become a major topic nationwide with three of the largest automakers on strike over contract negotiations involving the United Auto Workers Union.

Unions could quickly become a hot topic in another sector nationwide.

What happened: When many sports fans think of NCAA basketball, their attention likely turns to March Madness and the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

College basketball fans’ attention could turn to researching what unionization means soon after a historic vote by the Dartmouth men’s basketball team Tuesday.

The basketball team voted 13-2 in favor of joining the local service employees union. According to ESPN, this is the first time a group of college athletes have acted as employees of the school. The Dartmouth basketball team hopes it’s not the last team to take action and is encouraging other Ivy League schools to do the same.

Dartmouth filed an appeal Tuesday and could challenge the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming years.

“For Ivy League students who are college athletes, academics are of paramount importance and the pursuit of athletics is part of the educational experience,” the school said. “Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate.”

The Dartmouth basketball team’s decision comes years after Northwestern University football players attempted to unionize.

One notable difference is that Dartmouth is a private school and Northwestern is a public school. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which was involved in the case, does not have jurisdiction over public school athletes at this time, according to ESPN.

The Dartmouth basketball team has struggled in the 2023-24 season, posting a 6-21 overall record and a 2-12 conference record in the Ivy League.

The good news is that the decision to join the union could be a lucky charm since later Tuesday night, the basketball team defeated Harvard 76-69. The win ended a nine-game losing streak for the basketball team.

Tuesday’s victory was the final game of the season for Dartmouth, which did not qualify for the Ivy League Conference Tournament, reserved for the top four teams in the conference.

Related link: Unions benefit all workers, not just their members, groundbreaking Treasury study finds

And after: The NCAA faces several legal challenges related to whether athletes are professionals or employees and the battles could last for years.

College sports leaders are pushing Congress to create federal laws to clarify that college athletes are not employees.

On Tuesday’s Dartmouth News, several members of Congress spoke for or against the basketball team’s decision.

“Now is the time for universities to stop wasting their time and money fighting athletes in court and put pressure on Congress to roll back athletes’ rights, and start negotiating with the athletes on revenue sharing, health and safety protections and much more,” the senator said. Chris Murphy (Connecticut Democrat) said, as sharing by a sports writer Pete Nakos.

The senator spoke out against the basketball team. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who is a former college football coach.

“This is absolutely going to kill college sports. You know, last time I looked, these are not employees. These students are student-athletes,” Tuberville said during an appearance on Fox News, then that reported by Sportico.

Tuberville said unionizing college athletes, like Dartmouth’s basketball team, could “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

“Unions have ruined our education system across the country.”

Tuberville also suggested in his interview that the involvement of union players could lead to teams going on strike before championship games.

“They will take those who pay the bills hostage.”

Tuberville said the billions of dollars in revenue generated by NCAA sports are reinvested “into the business” each year.

The editor-in-chief of Athletics Stewart Mandel reacted to the article on Tuberville.

“The funny thing about that TV segment is he said ‘they’re not employees,’ and then about 30 seconds later, ‘it’s a full-time job being an athlete,'” Mandel said. tweeted.

The case is far from over, but the coming years could be seen as a milestone that changed college sports or, as Tuberville predicted, killed college sports.

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