NCAA Football Player Sues for Minimum Wage and Overtime

A new suit filed against the NCAA and the PAC-12 Conference claims that college athletes should be treated as employees and given a fair wage. The suit is being filed by former USC football player Lamar Dawson.

The plaintiff believes that athletes should be considered employees for the following reasons:

1. The school athletic programs exert a considerable amount of control over the lives of their athletes, thus qualifying them as employees.
2. Players are participants in a major business venture, athletics, which brings great revenue for the university.

The NCAA and the PAC-12 are currently evaluating the claim, but strongly disagree that athletes should be treated like employes. Instead, they believe that athletes are students who are committed to their academic achievements first and foremost. Therefore, the commitment they make to their sport and teammates more closely resembles a “passion” instead of a “job”. NCAA continues to use the idea of amateurism as their key defense whenever a case comes forth suggesting that student athletes be paid as employees.

The lawsuit argues that as employees, players work more than 8 hours per day, and more than 40 hours per week, the wages players receive is below the required minimum wage, and they do not receive overtime pay they are entitled to.

There are currently two other open cases against the NCAA that deal with compensating student athletes, one of which is going all the way to the Supreme Court. Ed O’Bannon, a former UCLA basketball plays, wants players to be able to make money off their name or image upon graduation.

See here for lawsuit claiming minor league baseball players are entitled to minimum wage and overtime.Do you believe that student athletes should be compensated as employees?