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2024 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/unilllr2024 and id is 1 raw text is: 












THE COLLEGIATE EMPLOYEE-ATHLETE


                                                            Marc  Edelman*
                                                     Michael  A. McCann**
                                                         John T. Holden***


        The past two years have brought important legal changes to the inter-
   collegiate sports industry, with the U.S. Supreme Court striking down as-
   pects of the NCAA 's bylaws thatprevented colleges from providing unlim-
   ited educational benefits to their athletes and state legislatures passing new
   laws to ensure that college athletes enjoy the legal right to endorse products
   for money. These recent changes to the economic system of college sports
   have now heralded broader change  in legal policy pertaining to the classi-
   fication of college athletes. At present, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
   Third Circuit is reviewing, on interlocutory appeal, the question of whether
   certain NCAA Division I college athletes may constitute employees for pur-
   poses of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In addition, on December 15, 2022,
   the National Labor Relations Board instructed its Los Angeles branch to
   move forward in pursuing an unfair labor practice charge against the Uni-
   versity of Southern California, the Pac-12 Conference, and the NCAA for
   engaging in the ongoing misclassification of their college football and bas-
   ketball players as mere student-athletes.
        This Article provides an in-depth and contemporary analysis of col-
   lege athletes' employment status under both federal labor and employment
   law. It concludes by asserting that while the NCAA and its member institu-
   tions may be correct that certain college athletes fail to fall within the legal
   definition of employees, other college athletes, especially those in revenue-
   generating sports, fall clearly within the legal definition. The Article further
   provides guidance as to determining what types of college athletes consti-
   tute bonafide employees, as well as what entity, or entities, would constitute
   the employers of these employee-athletes.







   *   Professor of Law, Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business, City University of New York; Director
of Sports Ethics, Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity.
    ** Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Professor of Law, Director of the Sports and Enter-
tainment Law Institute, University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law.
   *** Associate Professor, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University.


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