National College Players Association Becomes Second Group Seeking to Abandon Efforts to Establish Employee Status for College Athletes Before the NLRB

By Gregg Clifton

On the heels of the recent decision by the Service Employees Union to withdraw their petition to represent the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team while an appeal of that case was still pending before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) less than two weeks ago, the National College Players Association (NCPA) has abruptly ended its near three (3) year bid before the NLRB to have USC’s men’s and women’s basketball players and football players become joint employees of the NCAA, PAC-12 and USC by filing a similar motion to the NLRB seeking to withdraw its initial charge and its pending complaint. The NCPA made this decision while still awaiting a ruling by an Administrative Law Judge on in the potential joint employee status of the USC student-athletes. Thus, ending the current matters pending before the NLRB seeking to have student-athletes reclassified as employees.

The NCPA began their pursuit of employee status by filing an unfair labor practice charge on behalf of the USC student-athletes early in 2022. After an initial investigation of the charge by the NLRB’s Regional Director of the Los Angeles region, the initial charge was elevated to a complaint seeking an administrative judge’s determination that the USC athletes were actually employees of the NCAA, the PAC-12 and the school. While the lengthy trial was completed in 2024, the administrative law judge had yet to issue a formal decision on the legal status of the USC student-athletes.

Despite this lengthy battle by the NCPA before the NLRB, which included numerous days of hearing where evidence was presented and challenged in an NLRB administrative hearing, the NCPA has aborted their efforts before the NLRB. The NCPA claims that recent changes in various state laws around the country and modification to NCAA policy and bylaws as well as the terms of the proposed House settlement which will allow schools to pay their student-athletes up to $20.5 million directly on an annual basis pursuant justifies this withdrawal decision. This decision ends the long-standing goal of current NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, which she announced in the early stages of the Biden administration, to use federal labor laws and the NLRB process to reclassify student-athletes as University employees and grant them all of the protections of the National Labor Relations Act, including the right to organize and form unions for purposes of collective bargaining.

While NCPA executive director Ramogi Huma refused to comment on the matter regarding the NCPA’s decision seeking to withdraw and end its efforts, USC representatives stated, “The university agrees this case should be dismissed because it has no merit. The evidence presented during the NLRB hearing confirmed that our student-athletes should not be classified as employees. We remain committed to providing exceptional opportunities for all of our student-athletes.”

Although the current legal fight for employee status of student-athletes has currently ended before the NLRB, it is anticipated that the new Congress will move forward with some type of long-awaited federal legislation on the college athlete issue. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the new Republican leader of the influential Senate Commerce Committee has announced that one of his "major priorities" will be to pass a federal law to help the NCAA regulate the market for college athletes without violating federal antitrust restrictions. A bipartisan group of senators led by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas and Sen. Corey Booker, D-NJ is currently drafting legislation to help accomplish this goal. While Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has already announced that he does not intend to save the NCAA he wants to help college sports save themselves. As Sen Cruz stated, "College sports is in crisis right now, and if Congress doesn't act, we risk seeing devastation."