BREAKING NEWS | Ruling to allow college athletes to unionize is thrown out

CHICAGO (AP) — The National Labor Relations Board today threw out a historic ruling that gave Northwestern University football players the go-ahead to form the nation's first college athletes' union, saying the prospect of union and nonunion teams could throw off the competitive balance in college football.

The decision dismissed a March 2014 decision by a regional NLRB director in Chicago who said that the football players are effectively school employees and entitled to organize. Today's decision did not directly address the question of whether the players are employees.

"Although we do not decide the issue here, we acknowledge that whether such individuals meet the board's test for employee status is a question that does not have an obvious answer," the NLRB said.

The labor dispute goes to the heart of American college sports, where universities and conferences reap billions of dollars, mostly through broadcast contracts, by relying on amateurs who are not paid. In other countries, college sports are small-time club affairs, while elite youth athletes often turn pro as teens.

The unanimous ruling by the five-member National Labor Relations Board concludes that letting Northwestern football players unionize could lead to different standards at different schools – from the amount of money players receive to the amount of time they can practice. That would, it says, create the competitive imbalances.

The ruling applies to private schools like Northwestern, which is a member of the powerful Big Ten Conference. Public universities do not fall under the agency's jurisdiction, though union activists have said they hope Northwestern's example inspires unionization campaigns by athletes at state schools.