Dartmouth’s vote to unionize could help end college sports’ plantation dynamics

If the will is there, so too is the potential for unions to transform working conditions in the multibillion world of college sports

The only way things will change is if the players leverage their value to implement their interests. The only way this changes is the creation of a college football player's association." That's what one former player told us about how to solve the problem of exploitation in college football in our forthcoming book The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game.

Since we had that conversation, members of the men's basketball team at Dartmouth College have followed the exhortation of National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo in her September 2021 memo to petition to form a union, and on Tuesday they voted to by a count of 13-2 in an election held on the school's campus in Hanover, New Hampshire. While there likely remains a long and murky road ahead before the question of Dartmouth basketball's unionization bid is resolved - including a potential appeal to federal court - what remains apparent is that college athletes require unionization to defend their working conditions and that they clearly want it.

Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Derek Silva is Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at King's University College at Western University. They are co-authors of The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game and co-hosts (with Johanna Mellis) of The End of Sport podcast.