Can Collective Bargaining Save College Football From Itself in the NIL Era?

The House v. NCAA settlement has the state of college sports in a standstill as schools try to prepare for a murky future of paying players directly for NIL.

With the college football season beginning just months after the expected July 1 date, it’s been a chaotic nightmare of an offseason.

There’s not even a guarantee the settlement will be approved.

The worst part is that the players at the center of the issue weren't consulted and don't know what the future holds.

In the absence of that voice, the need for collective bargaining and a players union grows more critical by the day.

Jim Cavale, founder of the players association for college athletes, Athletes.org, spoke exclusively with NIL Daily On SI about the need for a sustainable solution in the form of collective bargaining.

Can Collective Bargaining Save College Football in the NIL Era?

Name, image, and likeness entered college sports as the result of a pivotal lawsuit filed by former UCLA Bruins basketball player Ed O’Bannon.

College sports have since been shaped by litigation, and is that truly the path it should continue to follow? Cavale doesn’t believe so.

“The only sustainable solution for college athletics to have rules that can be enforced without litigation is collective bargaining,” Cavale explained.

Before launching Athletes.org with former NFL player Brandon Copeland, Cavale founded INFLCR in 2017, which helped support athletes on social media to build their brand.

They were acquired by Teamworks, and Cavale stayed on as CEO as they built payment and reporting software for clients once NIL began.

Cavale observed that within the more than $300 million in transactions, most of the funds originated from donors who funneled money through collectives, essentially creating a pay-for-play model.

As court cases continued to be filed against the NCAA, Cavale saw the problems in an unstructured environment operating under the guise of NIL when it was really pay-for-play and sought to found Athletes.org.

To date, there are a record 4,700 members in the players association, making it the largest in America. Their focus has been on Power Four football and basketball, of which there are 2,300.

That’s where Cavale anticipates collective bargaining taking center stage first, but the reason he expects that is because of foreseen issues with an incomplete solution in the House settlement.

“We need a set of rules that can be enforced without litigation. We need them in all realms: transfer portal, free agency, compensation, health and safety, et cetera. The only way to do that is through collective bargaining.”

Collective bargaining would also give athletes a voice in this process they really haven’t been included in, despite the plaintiffs representing less than 0.1% of all athletes, all of whom are members of the players association.

“Unfortunately, not only has the greater group of college athletes that are going to be impacted [by House] not been included in that negotiation, but no athletes have been educated on anything pertaining to the settlement,” Cavale said. “The schools have said, We're going to tell our athletes how it's all going to work once it gets approved. There are tens of thousands of college athletes that are trying to piece together what this new reality is going to look like through media reports, not direct education from their schools.”

Cavale also pointed out that the compensation provided by schools does not truly qualify as NIL deals. These agreements are a form of pay-for-play. However, the contracts will pertain to NIL publicity rights.

Athletes may sign deals that limit their ability to use their likeness for outside endorsement deals because they're disguised from their true purposes: their performance on the field.

“Leave real NIL endorsement opportunities open to those athletes, should they have the value, to go command those deals,” Cavale said. “Instead of trying to disguise these deals in a way where you now own their rights to do endorsements or can block them from doing certain endorsements because those brands might conflict with the brand sponsors of your school. That's going to be a mess. There’s a real crux with how these contracts are being structured that will create a flurry of lawsuits.”

That void in education has created an opportunity for Cavale and his team, as their app educates their members on the topics of roster limits, how money will be dispersed, and why football is commanding a higher amount of $20 million.

The athletes also benefit from pro bono partnerships with law firms, accounting firms, mental health, and more as part of the free membership. Ultimately, they just want to know what the settlement means.