The National Labor Relations Board on Monday declined to assert jurisdiction over whether football players at Northwestern University may form a union. The action, while narrow, effectively reverses a ruling 16 months ago by the NLRB's Chicago regional office saying that, under the National Labor Relations Act, scholarship football players at private universities are employees. The ruling by the Chicago office cited multiple factors in concluding that the scholarship football players at Northwestern are employees: they perform services for the benefit of their employer and receive compensation in exchange, and scholarship players are “subject to the employer's control in the performance of their duties as football players.”

August 17, 2015 ・ From Inside Higher Ed