In January, during an interview on the podcast Pardon My Take, Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN’s lead college football analyst, said the quiet part out loud.
“I say we make the players employees,” he told PMT. “I say we’re on a path to unionization. … That’s where we’re headed.”
A month later, the movement to make college athletes employees of their universities took another significant step.
On Tuesday, the National College Players Association filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the NCAA office, the Pac-12 Conference and California schools USC and UCLA as single and joint employers of FBS football players and Division I men’s and women’s basketball players.