A day after a landmark ruling that could change college sports by allowing NCAA athletes to unionize, St. John's coach Rick Pitino said the sport needs a salary cap and a new hierarchy to thrive.
The National Labor Relations Board ruled Monday that Dartmouth men's basketball players, who had asked to be recognized by a local union, are employees of the school, a ruling that could allow NCAA athletes to unionize and negotiate working conditions. , among other aspects of his employment. .
Pitino tweeted Tuesday that college basketball's major conferences should join forces and create a salary cap of up to $2 million. He did not specify whether that figure would include payments for names, images and likenesses or funding directly from schools.
“For basketball, have the Power 5 [and] Big East conference commissioners meet and create salary cap between [$1.5 and $2 million]” Pitino tweeted. “All contracts delivered to league and school offices.”
While Pitino did not suggest that the major conferences should separate from the other schools, he said the boundary should be different for those leagues.
“All other conferences set their own salary cap,” he tweeted. “I would never exclude anyone from the NCAA tournament. Obviously, football is a completely different sport and some of its talents earn more than NFL players. There will be more solutions in the coming days.”
After the NLRB ruling, Pitino joked that his players had asked to “work on their shots,” but he told them he didn't want them to exceed their hours for the week. The NCAA has insisted that athletes are not employees.
Dartmouth can appeal the NLRB's ruling, but the decision is another potentially groundbreaking event in a stretch that has rapidly reshaped college athletics. NCAA President Charlie Baker has called for a “new level” of college sports for wealthier schools, which could then pay their athletes an annual stipend through a trust fund. The Big Ten and the SEC, the two richest conferences in college sports, recently created a joint committee to discuss the future of college athletics. And multiple lawsuits in recent months have challenged NCAA rules on transfers and NIL agreements.
“We all want solutions to preserve our great game,” Pitino tweeted.
Pitino offered “Solution 2” in a tweet later Tuesday. He said the NCAA should be “taken out of the equation” in a new college landscape, which should include contracts for players.
“End letters of intent, force athletes to sign a [two-year] binding contract, no different than professional athletes, which they are,” Pitino tweeted. “With that, the [NIL] The group draws up its NIL contract based on the limit. Obviously, there is a lot to say about this. “I think the NCAA should be taken out of the equation and the commissioners should be included in it, since the NCAA loses more cases than the defense attorneys on 'Law & Order.'”
