WindyCityGopher
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Not calling the athletes "labor" is legal semantics and nothing more. It's undeniable that there is now a meaningful cost to attracting a player to a school and keeping them there (beyond the scholarship) that did not exist 5 years ago, and it's creating an even larger chasm between the haves and have-nots. Sure, call athletes independent contractors as they're legally defined, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that the cost of retaining their services is real and growing. Even if that cost is borne by an outside entity like a NIL collective, does it really matter how it's defined if a school continually loses talent to the highest bidder? I'm sure coaches don't give a shit what the government and lawyers call the athletes they're losing to other programs, many just know they're at a decided disadvantage in a battle they're never going to win because they don't have the resources to compete.There is no labor cost. There is no labor.
There is NIL cost. It would be incorrect to call players labor. If they did it may even cost them a court case.