Rece Davis believes making college athletes employees is 'the only answer'

Rece Davis believes making college athletes employees is the way forward for college athletics as a whole. In the era of the transfer portal and NIL, it must be done.

Some will look at the unlimited transfers and say it’s out of control. Or, the amount of money being thrown around.

The Nico Iamaleava situation certainly turned a lot of heads and there is more conversation about slowing things down. Maybe not guard rails, because Davis doesn’t like that word, but rules and regulations as employees

“I’ve been against players being employees, because I said for a long time, and perhaps erroneously so, that universities were so ill equipped to sometimes run their own athletic departments, not that the athletic directors don’t do a good job. I don’t mean that, but just from a whole legal Employee Negotiations union, they were ill equipped to do so, and therefore it wasn’t a good idea,” Davis said on the College GameDay Podcast. “I now believe it’s really the only answer, because you have to have some type of parameters. 

“And I don’t like the word guard rails, because that implies that everybody’s, including the players, are somehow out of control trying to get money when they’re just getting in the business of exercising their rights in the market, competitive commerce. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

How do you make college athletes employees? Davis said there has to be some sort of framework and agreement between and athlete and administration.

“So what we need is just what every other business has. It’s a framework,” Davis said. “And when you have that, you have employers and employees at the end of the day. It’s what they are. Right now, when you’re making millions, when you’re paying or trying to pay a quarterback $2.4 million and he says, ‘No,’ that’s an employee employer relationship. That’s what it is. 

“I had an athletic director call me the other day to talk about the notion of sort of showing Congress some good faith by making some of these things happen through the college football playoff and showing that they could revenue share there and then, as a result, perhaps getting some type of legislative relief in this,” Davis continued. “But I think you’re absolutely right. It’s all in the weeds. The other sports are worth protecting and I sort of fall on the side they can protect all of them, if they want to.”