In a potential watershed moment, Northwestern University’s football players can now unionize – the first in all college athletics – after the National Labor Relations Board passed the controversial ruling on Wednesday afternoon. 

Spearheading the efforts was the College Athletes Players Association, a union that advocates players’ labor rights. 

“The NCAA invented the term student-athlete to prevent the exact ruling that was made today,” said CAPA President Ramogi Huma. “For 60 years, people have bought into the notion that they are students only. The reality is players are employees, and today's ruling confirms that. The players are one giant step closer to justice."

According to NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr, the decision to grant union rights is twofold. Firstly, between practices, fitness conditioning and actual competition, football players spend an inordinate amount of time on the sport. Secondly, the simple fact that their scholarships are directly tied to their performance on the pitch. 

In this respect, the NLRB and CAPA are in agreement. Ohr views football players as “employees of the school” due to the time commitment and the economic relationship between both parties. 

CAPA attorneys fought for the case on similar grounds. They believe that college football is very much like a business: that colleges rely on players’ labor to generate billions of dollars in revenue – not so dissimilar to the dynamic between employer and employee. 

The ruling may have set a new precedent in college sport, but opinions vary wildly (as one would expect). Robert McCormick, a professor emeritus at Michigan State University College of Law who studies sports and labor law, deemed it “revolutionary for college sports.”

Northwestern officials, however, are disappointed by the decision. A statement released shortly after the ruling read, “Northwestern believes strongly that our student-athletes are not employees, but students. Unionization and collective bargaining are not the appropriate methods to address the concerns raised by student-athletes.” 

The school has also announced that they will appeal the decision to the full NLRB in Washington. And while there might be concerns that Northwestern’s example could lead to athletes around the country taking similar action, USC athletic director Pat Haden is adamant that this is a non-issue for the Trojans. 

Despite mentioning ongoing concerns in college football regarding pay-for-play, unionization and concussion prevention, Haden wrote. “Regarding unionization specifically, I have looked at the demands of the Northwestern players, and quite honestly, we provide most of those already at USC. We do not yank scholarships from players, and we happily pay former student-athletes to come back and complete their degrees.”

Likewise, NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy is not caught up in the furor but views the ruling as an opportunity to tweak the incumbent system. “While improvements need to be made, we do not need to completely throw away a system that has helped literally millions of students over the past decade alone attend college,” Remy said. 

 “We want student athletes -- 99 percent of whom will never make it to the professional leagues -- focused on what matters most -- finding success in the classroom, on the field and in life."

Expecting the NCAA to change their system seems far-fetched in the near future, but for now Northwestern’s unionization stands to offer at least a decent consolation: a nationwide debate on what it means to be a “student-athlete.”

The (unfair) sweeping statement against student athletes is that their worth to the school is conferred outside of the classroom rather than in it. 

But it would not be disingenuous to say that student athletes - the ones with the willingness and ability to ‘go pro’ - are recruited primarily for their sporting ability. Which is to say that academics are secondary to them - and the school. 

Ohr echoed the sentiment when he wrote, “The record makes clear that the Employer’s scholarship players are identified and recruited in the first instance because of their football prowess and not because of their academic achievement in high school.”

Perhaps the essence of Northwestern football players' gripes is essentially this: For all intents and purposes, they're athletes first and students second. As such, labeling them an "athlete-student" might be a more fair assessment, as jarring as it may sound. 

Reach Staff Writer Andrew Seah here.