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The Dartmouth College men\u2019s basketball team voted to unionize on Wednesday, the first time a college sports team has elected to join a union in the United States. Experts say that the decision, which Dartmouth has vowed to appeal, has been a long time coming\u2014and could have huge impacts on the ways college athletes are compensated<\/a> across the country.<\/p>\n Forward Cade Haskins and guard Romeo Myrthil announced their intentions to unionize last September, arguing that policies like the basketball team\u2019s restrictive practice schedules and the profits that Dartmouth makes from the basketball program meant players should be treated as employees\u2014and compensated like employees, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n After months of back-and-forth with the National Labor Relations Board, the team voted 13-2 in favor of joining the SEIU Local 560 on Tuesday. The vote could open the door for similar unionization efforts across the country, which would be a big blow to the NCAA\u2019s business model\u2014but not if the NCAA itself has a say in the matter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems almost inevitable that Dartmouth College, with a lot of compulsion from the NCAA, will appeal this decision,\u201d Marc Edelman, a sports law professor at Baruch College\u2019s Zicklin School of Business, told Fortune <\/em>after the NLRB allowed a union vote last month.<\/em><\/p>\n Dartmouth has already made its opposition clear. The union vote was held Tuesday despite objections from the Trustees of Dartmouth College, who filed an emergency motion to halt the election <\/a>last week. (The NLRB declined to uphold it.) Now that the vote is final, the college has five business days to file any objections to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Currently, Dartmouth student-athletes (and all other NCAA student-athletes across the country) are unpaid. While some athletes at other schools receive scholarships covering tens of thousands of dollars in expenses such as tuition and housing fees, Dartmouth students don\u2019t, because athletic scholarships are banned at all Ivy League schools. And no Dartmouth student-athletes receive a regular paycheck in exchange for the time they spend practicing, traveling, and competing in their sport. Most athletes are also responsible for any sports injuries they incur through their own health insurance.\u00a0<\/p>\n As of June 2021, college athletes have been allowed to make money by licensing their name or likeness through so-called NIL deals after a unanimous Supreme Court ruling<\/a>. But so far, collecting a paycheck in exchange for competing in their sport has remained out of reach. That could be set to change\u2014as part of the SEIU Local 560, the Dartmouth men\u2019s basketball team would be eligible to collectively bargain with the university for things like wages and health benefits.<\/p>\n The NLRB ruled last month that the team was eligible to hold a union vote in February, finding that the players fit the legal definition of employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was not at all surprised by the [February] ruling,\u201d said Edelman.\u201cIf you look at the realities of big-time football and big-time men\u2019s basketball, even within the Ivy League schools, it seems to meet the definition of employee.\u201d<\/p>\n Dartmouth contested that assertion, arguing that the school doesn\u2019t profit from the basketball program\u2014it actually loses money on its athletics programs. And because it doesn\u2019t give out athletic scholarships, students have no barriers preventing them from quitting the team if they feel the schedule is too demanding, it says.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike other institutions where athletics generates millions of dollars in net revenue, the costs of Dartmouth\u2019s athletics program far exceed any revenue from the program \u2013 costs that Dartmouth bears as part of our participation in the Ivy League,\u201d a Dartmouth spokesperson said in an email to Fortune. <\/em>\u201cDartmouth has a long and proud history of productive relationships with unions on campus, always negotiates in good faith when appropriate, and respects the rights of workers to unionize.\u00a0 However, we do not believe these students are employees.\u201d<\/p>\n The NCAA, the nonprofit organization that regulates collegiate sports in the United States, has warned that if student-athletes nationwide were classified as employees, it would ruin the entire business model of college sports<\/a>. NCAA President Charlie Baker cautioned last month that widespread unionization could harm the 95 percent of athletes who compete for schools that lose money on their sports programs, and that action from Congress was needed to protect the NCAA.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in the end, we are going to need Congress to do something,\u201d Baker said. \u201cBecause people will draw a lot of conclusions from court decisions. And then there will be new ones.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar unionization efforts have fizzled out in the past. In 2015, the NLRB rejected an attempt by the Northwestern University football team to call for a union vote. But Edelman said that the players on the Dartmouth team were uniquely well-positioned to get approval from the NLRB and pass a union vote.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are dealing with very intelligent, formally educated and traditionally experienced young men,\u201d said Edelman. \u201c[They] are disproportionately likely to have college educated parents who may reasonably be more mindful of their legal rights, and [they\u2019re] less likely to be intimidated by athletic directors or coaches attempting to threaten them against exercising their rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if Dartmouth or the NCAA successfully challenges the team\u2019s decision and prevents them from entering into collective bargaining, the vote could lay the groundwork for similar movements at different schools across the country.<\/p>\n \u201cWe call on other athletes here at Dartmouth, across the Ivy League, and the country to follow this story and join us on the journey to improve the conditions for college athletes everywhere,\u201d wrote Haskins and Myrthil in the Dartmouth student newspaper<\/a> last September. \u201cWe are available to any athlete interested in getting more information on how to form a union\u2026College athletes will finally have the chance to have an equal voice regarding their working conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSubscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. 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