September 29, 2015

Episode 4: NCAA Issues with Sonny Vaccaro

In this episode (the second of a two part series), Peter Ott speaks with Sports Marketing legend Sonny Vaccaro about his advocacy on behalf of college athletes. Sonny was recently the subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary entitled “Sole Man.” That movie looked at the broad outline of his life, from his start in Trafford, Pennsylvania to his signing of Michael Jordan to his first Nike deal to his recent advocacy on behalf of college athletes. In this podcast, Sonny discusses what he thinks is wrong with the current NCAA system. He outlines how he thinks that college athletes are being exploited by the NCAA and its member schools and he discusses the O’Bannon lawsuit.

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August 17, 2015

NLRB Rejects Northwestern Unionization Effort

Today, the National Labor Relations Board made a surprising decision that was actually a bit of a non-decision. The Board unanimously ruled that it could not rule on the issue of college athlete unionization because labor law only allows the Board to look at private-sector workplaces and only 17 of the 125 schools eligible to play in a college football bowl are private universities. The Board says that “asserting jurisdiction over a single team would not promote stability in labor relations across the league.” This decision has the practical effect of preventing Northwestern University football players from being able to unionize.

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