Athletes-as-Employees Model Would Alter ND Approach

The University of Notre Dame is the latest school to express that it would withdraw from the current setup of big-time college sports in the event student-athletes are deemed to be employees, according to athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who appeared as a panelist at a Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Sports meeting Tuesday.

"Notre Dame's just not prepared to participate in any model where the athlete isn't a student first and foremost — that's the hallmark for us," Swarbrick told USA TODAY Sports. "If the entire model were to move toward athletes as employees, we'd head in a different direction. Our president has been clear about that. I'm not articulating a unique position."

It's one that's not unique to Notre Dame, either. Northwestern University president emeritus Henry Beinen, a Knight Commission member, expressed a hope that Northwestern athletics would likewise seek a different approach to athletics, if the National Labor Relations Board concludes that an employer-employee relationship exists. The NLRB is deliberating the March 2014 ruling of regional director Peter Sung Ohr that Northwestern's scholarship football players are employees of the university, a ruling that included an order that Northwestern players vote on whether or not to unionize.

"If we wound up with a business where you wound up paying the players to play, I think alumni would have a different view [of college sports]," Beinen said. "I think the faculty would be unaccepting of it, at least at universities like Northwestern and Stanford and maybe Notre Dame, Rice, Duke. … We haven't gotten there by a long shot. Will we? I don't know. I hope not."

After appearing at a Congressional hearing on the Northwestern unionization effort last May, Stanford University athletic director Bernard Muir told USA Today Sports, "If [Stanford's athletes] are deemed employees, we will opt for a different model."

Speaking at Tuesday's meeting, NCAA vice president Kevin Lennon reiterated the associations long-standing position that student-athletes are amateurs. “Amateur status, as defined by being college eligible, is compromised when they use their athletic skill for pay,” Lennon said. “The introduction of pay may lead some — not all, but some — to not take full advantage of these educational opportunities that are available to them in their college years.”