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Last week, amid a news cycle already packed with updates from courthouses and Washington, D.C., one of the biggest stories in college athletics dropped on the West Coast.
The United College Athletes Association announced that more than 100 women’s college basketball players had signed up for a unionization effort. As part of that nationwide push, members of the Oregon State women’s basketball team filed a petition to unionize with the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
This isn’t the first time college athletes have attempted to unionize. But I believe this is one of the first efforts at a public university; previous attempts came from Northwestern football and Dartmouth men’s basketball. And that distinction is important, because it means the legal and administrative process won’t be the same.
The National Labor Relations Board — a federal agency whose membership is shaped by the current presidential administration — governs unionization among private employers. Formal unionization efforts at many institutions have paused or slowed, in part out of reluctance to bring a case to the NLRB under a Republican administration that’s less likely to be favorable toward organized labor.
But the Oregon State women’s basketball players are specifically filing for union representation under Oregon State University, which would make them public employees.
Their first step in what will probably be a long process would be to petition for Oregon State University to voluntarily recognize their union. This could happen, as momentum toward supporting collective bargaining with athletes has grown over the past decade among larger athletic departments, but it’s probably unlikely. Previous athlete unionization efforts did not bring voluntary recognition, and universities, even in blue states, often decline to voluntarily recognize other unions on campus.
So let’s say Oregon State says no.
What happens next?
I asked Keith Cunningham-Parmeter, a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.
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A bi-weekly look at the rapidly changing licensing landscape in college sports, as part of a paid sponsorship with Desert Cactus.
Planning Required
Big games and major branding opportunities are baked into the athletics calendar. There are rivalry matchups, big-time anniversaries and opportunities to capitalize on recent success. But in order to translate those moments into sales, schools and athletic departments need to be aligned with licensing ahead of time. Merchandise and apparel doesn't appear in stores overnight, and poor planning could mean missed opportunities.
Think of all the chances schools have to make and sell merch that fans will hold onto for years. There are color-out games, heritage games (like Hispanic heritage and Black History Month) and matchups featuring throwback uniforms, just to name a few. Sure, those events appear on schedules months in advance — but athletic departments need to start coordinating with licensing just as early. It can take six months or longer for products to hit retail shelves, and fans will want to shop in advance so they can coordinate with the coaches and players on the field and court.
With the right kind of planning, apparel lines and merch collections can be huge hits. Look no further than UTEP's recent "Sun City" line, which celebrates the Miners' connection with the El Paso community. The school and its licensing partner coordinated well in advance and pulled off an eye-catching line ahead of a series of "Sun City Games" matchups across sports.
Headquartered in the Chicago area, Desert Cactus is a fast-growing e-commerce company specializing in officially licensed and custom merchandise for more than 650 colleges and universities.
