The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has spoken. They have also given college athletes the power to end collegiate athletics as they are known today. The minute Northwestern football won their court case, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), lost something much bigger. The NCAA is as corrupt as an organization can ever hope to be. If I could take them down, I without a doubt would not hesitate. The rules in the NCAA rulebook are comical. However, in this case, they actually do have a case. Letting Northwestern unionize is a part of the death march for the NCAA. Ex-Northwestern football players, much like many former NCAA athletes, argued the case the athletes should be paid for earning universities, television networks, and other various companies millions. Northwestern, putting their words into action, won the court case and are on their way to becoming an official union and employees of Northwestern University.

 The athletes claim that they just want medical expenses covered, no pay-for-play or anything of that nature. If that isn’t a bold faced lie, I don’t know what is. Yes, I believe that athletes deserve compensation if a “#2 Texas A&M jersey” sells, which is so obviously correlated to Johnny Manziel, or if their likeness is sold in a college football video game. College athletes have been screwed by the NCAA for far too long. But the second the “union” sees a chance to get pay-for-play money, they’re going to jump with no doubts. You have to pay everyone equally as well, as Title IX ensures that. So questions arise such as “Do we pay the wrestling team the same as the football team? What about the field hockey team?”

 As I watched National Signing Day for the football season this February, I was a little jealous. These players are going to any university of their choice. For free. I have decided on what college I am going to, and am currently in the midst of a struggle to find a way to pay for my education. I will come out of college tens of thousands of dollars in debt. That’s just the way it is. But these players have a golden opportunity. They will, if they choose to be studious students, graduate with a college degree. Something that without sports, would not of been possible for some. They’re being granted a gift of a free education, and they’re being greedy by asking for more. You can also think of it in the way that the players are being paid-for their education. Imagine getting $150,000 for a four year part time job. Then imagine they are just putting it towards their education up front. Now, the NLRB has set a precedent that college sports teams can unionize and be paid for their play, as well as be classified as employees. Getting a free education, something families save up a lifetime for their children, is invaluable.

 Another problem enlies with boosters, as typically the problems during recruiting scandals when players are paid illegally. The whole point of paying these players is to make them come to the university they are affiliated with by paying them a boatload of money. If athletes are able to be paid because they play a sport, some believe that the problem of paying players will end. In absolutely no way will this end the problem. If the goal is to gain an edge, what would stop boosters or coaches from paying these players even more?

 The football players behind the case seem to forget that the school they attend services more than athletics. They have clubs, other sports teams, professors to pay, food to buy, and basic services to maintain a functioning campus. How on earth do the players expect to be paid what they believe is a fair compensation, while keeping other things on campus up and running? If an 85 member varsity football team is paid-for-play, how would professors be paid? It also brings up the question of how to compensate them. Should Johnny Manziel be paid more than the third string left tackle on Texas A&M? Conventional wisdom says yes. However, Isn’t Johnny Manziel just as much a part of the team as that backup lineman? Surely, serious cuts would have to be made to service these football players. Let’s take Notre Dame for an example. If NCAA athletes get paid-for-play, (and assuming other sports athletes’ follow suit with demanding to be paid) a rich, private, Catholic school like Notre Dame would surely be able to withstand the cash reduction because they have to pay players, correct? Well, in order to pay athletes, the school would have to fire some professors. The academics at such a historic university would come tumbling down. But they still have sports! Then, the school has to raise tuition to get more money into the school to pay these athletes, thus, some academic-only bound students cannot afford to attend the school. But they still have sports! After various clubs around the school are cut to save money, students can no longer do the things they wished to partake in in college, so some transfer. But ESPN College Gameday is coming to South Bend for a showdown with rival USC! And finally, the school cannot afford modern amenities, so it becomes a rundown, old, Catholic graveyard of a school. But thank God they paid their players so that they could actually make money playing a sport in college!

  That may be an extreme scenario, but it is not entirely out of the question. Radford University, who does not even have a football team, has already cut indoor/outdoor track, swimming, and field hockey. Temple University in Philadelphia, which does have a football team, had to cut indoor/outdoor track, baseball, softball, and men’s gymnastics. Both scenarios do not include paying players. So when looking at college football, many see the pageantry of Alabama or Notre Dame. However, too few see the side effects of simply a bad economy. D1 athletes in lesser known sports are already seeing the negative effects of a tightened budget. They no longer have scholarships to compete in the sport they’ve worked in their whole life.

 In essence, the NCAA is, for lack of a better word, screwed. Every college team in America is chomping at the bit trying to get what Northwestern got. All college athletes see the opportunity. They can form a union and become pioneers of their sport. They can be the first athletes to be paid of all time at the collegiate level. However, paying athletes becomes a bigger problem when there are no athletes to pay. If college athletes are able to be compensated for their work, amatuer level sports at the college level will vanish forever.