NLRB Addresses The Status Of College Football Players Again

The National Labor Relations Board’s General Counsel sent out a memo saying that “scholarship football players in Division I Football Bowl Subdivision private-sector colleges and universities are employees” under the National Labor Relations Act.

This doesn't carry the force of law but it is one more chip in the NCAA’s concept of amateurism.

Even if it carries the day however, never forget that almighty Congress, hesitant in so many matters, has never been hesitant to step in when it thinks constituents might have their weekends disrupted. In the not-too-distant-past, guys like Orin Hatch, Larry Craig, David Boren and Jay Rockefeller leaped to protect programs in their respective states.

You can’t count on them working together very much or very often, but football will get them in front of the microphones together in a way little else can. The only thing even close in terms of bipartisanship is subsidizing milk prices.

Consider yourself warned.