A federal official said Monday that members of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team were university employees, clearing the way for the team to receive a vote that could make it the nation’s first unionized college sports program.
In a statement, the National Labor Relations Board’s Boston regional director, Laura Sacks, said that because Dartmouth had “the right to control the work” of the group and because the group did that work “in exchange for compensation,” as equipment and play. tickets, the players were employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
The date for the unionization election has not yet been set, and the outcome must be certified by the NLRB. The university and the NCAA are expected to appeal the director’s decision.
In September, all 15 players on the team’s varsity roster signed and petitioned the labor board to unionize with the Service Employees International Union. On Oct. 5, Dartmouth’s lawyers responded by arguing that the players did not have the right to bargain collectively because, as members of the Ivy League, they did not receive athletic scholarships and because the program lost money every year.
The NCAA and its member schools have long resisted attempts to unionize college athletes, defending the student-athlete model that has come under fire from labor activists, judges and elected officials over the years.
In 2014, the Northwestern football team led a university program’s bid for unionization, arguing that because players were compensated through scholarships, they had the right to bargain collectively.
In a decision similar to Monday’s, a regional labor council director said Northwestern’s scholarship students were university employees and that a union election was held. But the sealed ballots were ultimately destroyed after the five-judge NLRB ruled in August 2015 that the players did not have the right to bargain collectively.
The environment surrounding labor rights in collegiate athletics has changed since then.
“So much has changed in the business of college athletics,” said Jason Stahl, the founder and executive director of the College Football Players Association, which promotes unionization efforts for college football players.
In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA’s ban on compensation for college athletes violated antitrust law, forcing the NCAA to allow athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness. The Reignment has transcended the traditional geographical boundaries of conferences, increasing travel times for players in leagues that will soon span from the West Coast to the East Coast.
Support for unions in general is also higher today than it was in 2015, according to available polls.
Michael LeRoy, a professor and sports expert at the University of Illinois, said he was waiting for an election in Dartmouth, in which the votes would not be revealed, before the NLRB issued its final decision.
Mr. LeRoy also noted that the current NLRB, under President Biden, had signaled more support for unionization efforts among college athletes than under President Barack Obama during the Northwestern union effort.
In September 2021, Jennifer A. Abruzzo, the board’s general counsel, said that college athletes should be considered employees under federal labor law, citing a Supreme Court ruling that year that college sports were a for-profit business and argued that classifying them simply as “student-athletes” would lead to a “chilling effect” on the organization’s efforts at college programs.
“This particular labor council has been very transparent about its view that at least some college athletes are, in fact, employees,” Mr. LeRoy said. “That didn’t happen in 2014.”
