The End of Amateurism?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) has long reaped the benefit of unpaid labor in the form of “amateur” athletics. Recently, college athletes have been pushing back on their classification as amateurs with increasing success.

Over the past few years, administrative tribunals and federal district courts across the country have revisited the employment status of NCAA student-athletes. The U.S. Supreme Court, in NCAA v. Alston, held that NCAA rules limiting education-related compensation violated federal anti-trust law. The NLRB has determined that “certain players at academic institutions” are employees under the National Labor Relations Acts. 

The Dartmouth Men’s Basketball Team elected to unionize after a judge determined that its players were “employees” of the school.

A federal appeals court recently applied an “economic realities test” to determine whether college athletes should be considered “employees” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).