With the NCAA Football season getting ready to kick off soon, we have been wondering how the Union push affected the Northwestern players.
Their coach Pat Fitzgerald claims he’s very proud of the maturity the players displayed and regardless how their season unfolds, he insists that there is not a college team that is more unified that the Northwestern Wildcats. To that he gives credit for the push by the players to unionize.
So with the Big Ten opening its annual 2 day news media event, there were some big stories regarding college sports on the agenda.
The new four team system for playoffs is beginning this 2014 NCAA football season, and the Big Ten would certainly be happy to take part in that event. Certainly Ohio State is in the picture, especially after the team was 24-2 in all games and 16-0 in conference games in the first two seasons with Urban Myer as head Coach. Then the Spartans of Michigan State expect to be there, after beating the Buckeyes in the conference title game and then winning last year’s Rose Bowl.
Then they have Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12, the five power conferences all considering autonomy to make their own independent rules and regulations, and that will come to a vote when the board of directors of the NCAA meets on the 7th of August 2014.
Another story for the Big Ten is that they have two new teams joining their ranks this 2014 with Maryland and Rutgers coming aboard.
Let’s not forget about the union movement with former Northwestern QB Kain Colter behind the push to form the first union for college athletes.
The National Labor Relations Board regional director back in March ruled that full scholarship players at Northwestern could bargain with the school as if they were employees, which was shocking news throughout the sports world.
In reality, it is not clear if the Northwestern Wildcats actually support the unionization, but they did vote back in April on forming the first college union for athletes and the result to this time is unknown as the NLRB impounded the voting ballots until an appeal by Northwestern and a possible coming court battle. The University then asked the NLRB to overturn that ruling this month as it was holding up their football program.
All in all this was seen by many as the end of the old and traditional student athlete era Is unionization inevitable at other schools even if it fails at Northwestern?
Thus fans that wager at their Offshore sportsbook as they Bet on college football may face unionization factors affecting the betting odds on their favorite college football teams in the future.