Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
Days after the N.C.A.A.’s decision to consider allowing college athletes to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses, a class-action lawsuit has been filed arguing that it was not enough — that athletes should be paid like employees.
Trey Johnson, a former Villanova defensive back who is playing in the Canadian Football League, is suing the N.C.A.A. and many of its member schools, accusing them of violating minimum-wage laws by refusing to pay their athletes.
Other efforts to force colleges to treat athletes as employees have failed. This suit, filed on Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, argues that athletes’ hours are tracked in the same way as those of students in a work-study program, and that if student ticket-takers, seating attendants and concession workers are being paid at least a minimum wage, the players performing on the field should be, too.