A group representing college athletes has put forward its clearest blueprint yet for what collective bargaining in college sports could actually look like, and it did it with help from Tennessee basketball players.
Athletes.org released a model term sheet Tuesday that lays out how a collective-bargaining agreement might work on issues ranging from player pay to the transfer portal to academics and enforcement. It does not function as a signed deal, but it stands out because Tennessee school leadership backed the process.
“We know what we want and how we want to move forward,” said DeWayne Brown II, a freshman for the 11th-ranked Volunteers and one of three team organizers. “Working through the collective bargaining process has been great and I hope it’s just a steppingstone for more college athletes to replicate our process with their own schools.”
The Tennessee model would move college sports away from the patchwork system that currently varies from school to school. It calls for a universal agreement on total player compensation and would scrap the idea that athletes are being paid for endorsements or sponsorships rather than for playing. Under NCAA rules, that kind of direct pay is forbidden.
Instead, the model points toward a salary structure more like a pro league, with spending caps and floors for schools. NIL deals would no longer be used as recruiting bait, and those deals would eventually give way to the salary system.
That shift reflects a blunt reality that Tennessee athletic director Danny White has been willing to say out loud. The current maximum a school can share with players is $21.5 million per year, but most major programs go beyond that through third-party NIL arrangements, many of them brokered by people tied to the schools.
White called it “intellectually dishonest” to pretend most players are making their money primarily from actual name, image and likeness use.
“We’re paying them to play sports,” White said, adding, “We’re doing that because we lost several court cases that said we’re violating antitrust law by not doing so. We need to accept our legal reality. By not accepting it, we’ve created this system that’s the most inefficient way I can think of for building rosters and organizing this thing.”
Athletes.org first reached out to the Tennessee players in June, knowing the school’s leadership was open to the idea that a collective-bargaining setup would eventually have to replace the current structure. The group worked directly with Tennessee leadership before the player representatives - Tyler Lundblade, Campbell Duncan and Brown - took the agreement to their teammates.
The deal was approved on Oct. 1.
Brandon Copeland, the executive director of Athletes.org, said the process undercuts a familiar criticism of athlete-led efforts.
“It does away with the idea that athletes are too tired, or don’t care, or aren’t mature enough to do this,” Copeland said. “They did it. And they worked extremely hard to not only look into the perspective of what’s best for them, but what’s best for the industry.”
The broader fight over collective bargaining in college sports remains unsettled. College athletes have never had a union, and previous efforts have run into major roadblocks. The Northwestern football team’s attempt to unionize failed, and similar pushes at Dartmouth and Southern California never got off the ground.
But the balance of power has shifted toward athletes in recent years. They have won court battles over transfer freedom and now have access to millions through revenue sharing and NIL money.
Supporters of the CBA idea, including White, say it may be the cleanest way to stabilize a system under heavy financial strain, especially with football rosters approaching $50 million. Critics argue it could be an illegal money grab that would drain athletic departments already dependent on football and basketball revenue to support every sport.
The Tennessee proposal also arrives as lawmakers and college sports leaders search for a way forward. The Protect College Sports Act, which passed the Senate last month and is now waiting in the House, largely sidestepped the question of whether players should become employees in order to draw Democratic support.
Even if a CBA concept were to gain traction, some skeptics say it could still take years to build. Randy Levine, the New York Yankees president who helped shape the legislation, said recently that anyone pushing that route must acknowledge that it would require changes not just to the National Labor Relations Act but to a range of state laws as well.
Copeland said the Tennessee model avoids that hurdle by using a centralized employer structure similar to Major League Soccer, giving athletes an entity outside the state system to bargain with. He said that setup would not require Congress or new laws. White compared it to college students working campus jobs for a unionized food-service company headquartered in another state.
“There are examples of students all over higher ed in this country that also have jobs,” he said. “Those who say it’s impossible are looking at it through the lens of the athletes being employees of the universities.
But that’s not what I’ve been suggesting for four years now. I think a central employment entity is critical to the model.”
Athletes.org rolled out its first model CBA around this time last year, but the Tennessee partnership marks a new step: an actual team, with school approval, helping shape the framework. Copeland said that matters at a moment when Congress is considering action and conferences are weighing their own alternatives if Washington stalls.
“It hopefully proves to the industry that this can happen in college sports,” Copeland said.
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