Packers CEO Mark Murphy fielded some questions during his monthly blog post on Packers.com.
The most interesting of which was a question regarding college football players at Northwestern attempt to form a union and what ramifications this could have on both the college game as well as the NFL.
“[T]he NCAA colleges have served as a great breeding ground for NFL teams over the years,” Murphy writes. “If the college players unionize, there will be more pressure on the NFL to establish a developmental league.”
Murphy is actually an interesting NFL executive to monitor just for the fact that the Packers do not have an owner, and is involved with league matter essentially representing the team as such. During the lockout, Murphy was one of the key members aiding the owner’s cause, so it’s interesting to hear him propose such a radical idea.
Of course, there is a long way to go before this could even become a reasonable option. The National Labor Relations Board will need to determine whether or not Northwestern football players are employees. From there, the battle is likely to reach an appeals case, so litigation could play out over the course of a few years.
Colleges would have to decide whether or not keep their programs if players are considered employees, so there’s still a chance that these programs could function under some sort of pay scale.
Still, it’s a very interesting idea to ponder.
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