The dam is breaking in college sports. Athletic directors, frustrated with a lack of federal regulation, are now openly considering collective bargaining agreements for athletes. This isn’t just talk; it’s a reaction to a new reality of NIL money, transfer portals, and massive legal settlements that could redefine amateurism forever.
For decades, it was the third rail of college athletics, a concept so radical it was dismissed out of hand: treating student-athletes as employees and engaging in collective bargaining. But in the smoke-filled rooms of Las Vegas this week, where the nation’s top college sports executives gathered, the unthinkable became the inevitable topic of conversation. The era of pretending college sports isn’t a professional enterprise is over, and the people in charge are finally admitting it.
At Sports Business Journal’s Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, a growing frustration among athletic directors boiled over. With no federal help on the horizon, some of the most powerful figures in the NCAA are beginning to see a unionized model not as a threat, but as a potential solution to the chaos consuming their world.
The Congressional Failure That Forced Their Hand
The immediate catalyst for this change of heart is the utter failure of political intervention. The NCAA and its member schools have spent years and millions of dollars lobbying for a federal law to provide an antitrust exemption, which would shield them from the wave of lawsuits challenging their amateurism model. Their best hope, the SCORE Act, failed to even reach the House floor for a vote on December 4, a stunning defeat for the organization. This legislative collapse, confirmed by reports from the Associated Press, left the NCAA exposed and its leaders searching for a new strategy.
Without a congressional lifeline, athletic departments are left to navigate a minefield of state laws, court rulings, and the ever-present threat of litigation. The status quo is not just unsustainable; it’s a financial and logistical nightmare. This has forced a pivot from lobbying politicians to considering direct negotiations with athletes.
The Voices of Change: What ADs Are Saying
The shift was palpable in the comments from veteran administrators. Joe Castiglione, the long-serving athletic director at Oklahoma, acknowledged that collective bargaining agreements, or CBAs, must now be part of the conversation. “We should not let the difficulty deter us from having a full conversation about how we can create a sustainable environment for college athletics,” Castiglione stated. “We certainly don’t have that now.”
Ohio State AD Ross Bjork, who oversees one of the largest athletic budgets in the country, echoed the sentiment, emphasizing the need for athletes to have a “bigger voice.” While he pointed out the immense complexities—including differing state laws and the distinction between public and private universities—his willingness to engage on the topic signals a monumental change. “Structurally, it’s really, really complicated,” Bjork admitted. “No one has come up with the panacea.”
A Blueprint for Unionization
This isn’t just theoretical. A tangible framework already exists. The group Athletes.org, a players association for college athletes, has already put forth a 38-page proposal detailing what a CBA in college sports could look like. Their argument is that a CBA would stabilize the system by creating uniform standards, reduce the constant threat of lawsuits, and provide legal protections that athletes currently lack under the vague “student-athlete” designation.
The NCAA’s traditional counterargument has been that employee status would be financially ruinous, forcing schools to cut non-revenue Olympic sports to afford the costs of insurance, retirement contributions, and other benefits. But that argument is losing its power in an era of nine-figure media rights deals and massive coaching salaries.
The Financial Arms Race Fueling the Fire
The conversation around CBAs is directly tied to the explosion of money in college sports. A federal judge’s approval of a nearly $2.8 billion settlement in June set the stage for direct revenue sharing with players, a model that already resembles a professional framework. As detailed by the Associated Press, this landmark case fundamentally alters the financial relationship between schools and athletes.
This new reality is forcing schools to find unprecedented revenue streams. Utah recently announced a partnership with a private equity firm, a move aimed at raising $500 million to stay competitive. At Ohio State, Bjork noted that his department’s budget of roughly $320 million is spent entirely, with most of their 36 sports operating at a loss. “We need to be creative. We need to drive more revenue,” he said. “If that’s a permanent capital revenue partner, maybe that’s the way to do it.”
When universities are turning to Wall Street to fund their athletic departments, the argument that they cannot afford to bargain with their athletes becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. The era of amateurism is not just ending—it’s already dead. The only question left is what comes next, and for the first time, a professionalized model with collective bargaining is on the table, put there by the very people who once fought against it.
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