Thursday night — 51 days before the scheduled start of the 2020 Pac-12 football season — representatives of the #WeAreUnited movement among Pac-12 athletes had a two-hour discussion with conference leaders, including commissioner Larry Scott. The discussion focused mostly on health and safety protocols, making sure that if games are played, the health of the athletes comes first.
This is the particular aspect of a large-scale (and multi-pronged) discussion in which there is natural agreement between the athletes and the conference. Guidelines, protocols, independent medical evaluators, and other components of a transparent, objective and accountable health monitoring system — with testing provisions and other practices designed to maximize player safety — have been worked on by the Pac-12. In that regard, the conference has not been slow or unresponsive in its attempt to address the concerns of athletes. The league deserves credit for that.
No one who follows the Pac-12 — and who has therefore monitored this story over the past several weeks — is living under the illusion that the #WeAreUnited campaign’s demand for a 50-percent revenue share, or its other big economic demands, would become the main centerpiece of negotiations. It was always going to be health and safety first, then the questions surrounding collegiate eligibility, redshirt guidelines, scholarship status, and similar issues.
The 50-percent revenue share is not going to gain traction in the near term. Thursday night’s discussion indicated as much, with the conference essentially telling the athletes a polite and firm no.
Yet, real news was made on this front, even as the league and the athletes made real progress on health and safety provisions and procedures.
Though the 50-percent revenue share was shot down by the Pac-12 Thursday night, the direct and straightforward way in which the league expressed itself was noteworthy.
According to reports, the league told the athletes that Pac-12 schools do not support the revenue-share proposal because it would create a “path to the student athletes becoming employees.”
There is nothing wrong with thinking the Pac-12 athletes’ demands on the 50-percent revenue share are unreasonable. Purely as a matter of political analysis, nearly everyone in the college sports industry would in fact agree that this won’t ever happen.
Yet, can we appreciate the point that Pac-12 athletes were focused on something more than raw numbers or percentages? They wanted to be involved in a discussion, and they wanted to drive a discussion.
After Thursday night’s talk, they have already done both things.
The Pac-12 admitting that “student athletes becoming employees” is the basis for opposing a 50-percent revenue share is already a win for the athletes. They have gotten a Power Five conference to concede that preservation of “amateur status” is a central aim, and that allowing athletes to be considered employees is something the Pac-12 wants to avoid.
Again: There’s no way the Pac-12 will agree to the 50-percent revenue share. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t change… but again, that’s not the entire point or purpose of the athletes’ demands. They are changing the conversation as we speak, for one thing. Extracting a frank acknowledgment from league officials about their reasoning and their thought process opens the door to future discussions.
No, of course these topics won’t be resolved in 50 days. They won’t be resolved in 500 days, either. That’s not the point. The point is that athletes more clearly know where the Pac-12 — and by extension, the NCAA — stands.
Given that we are in a pandemic, and that college football is asking players to play in a pandemic, the Pac-12 athletes — who are surely being watched by athletes in other conferences — have a chance to say in future meetings with Larry Scott that they are being viewed as essential workers by the conference and by college football at large.
If athletes are being asked to play in a pandemic, that certainly flows into a view that they are not only workers, but ESSENTIAL workers. If college football players are this important to balance sheets and budgets at schools across the country, a reasonable person would conclude that is “essential” work.
This gives players an avenue to say — very simply and very reasonably — that they deserve hazard pay and other tangible benefits in exchange for playing in a pandemic.
The Pac-12 admitted why it opposes the 50-percent revenue share. The #WeAreUnited athletes won’t ever get that 50-percent revenue share… but they HAVE moved the conversation forward. That is an achievement in and of itself.