For most college football fans one event that happened off the field in 2014 is unknown or a trivial, faded memory. What happened that year is football players at Northwestern University attempted to use ’employee’ rights to form a union.
On the surface what transpired was a failed effort of a group of college football players to gain employee status. But the effort of dozens of Northwestern’s players was not a total failure. It was a significant motivating factor that slowly led to the NCAA adopting a Name. Image and Likeness (NIL) Policy in 2021.
The NCAA had no plan then to control NIL misuse and abuse.