Dartmouth basketball players deemed ‘employees’ under NLRA

Over the past few years, collegiate athletes’ rights have continued to expand, with name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals being a hot topic of conversation and a way for student athletes to obtain significant compensation. Now, collegiate athletes may have new rights to assert based on the February 5, 2024, decision from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Trustees of Dartmouth College and Service Employees International Union, Local 560. The Board held that non-scholarship athletes (including in programs that aren’t profitable) may be considered employees under Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and therefore may vote to unionize.

NLRB ruling

In September 2023, members of the Dartmouth basketball team filed a petition seeking to join the local chapter of the union that already represents some of the college’s employees. Dartmouth opposed the petition by, among other things, arguing the basketball players didn’t constitute “employees” under the NLRA.

The NLRB rejected Dartmouth’s arguments and found that, based on the broad definition of “employee” under the NLRA, the basketball players at issue constituted employees. This finding was despite the “factual dispute as to how much revenue is generated by the men’s basketball program, and whether that program is profitable.”