As NCAA pushes off employment conversation, Deion Sanders cleans house at Colorado

Deion Sanders always intended to clean house at Colorado. When he took the job back in December, he spoke about his luggage – and it was going to be Louis. He also openly asked players to enter the transfer portal in his first speech to the team. 

Using the portal to flip rosters has become the norm in college football. Sanders is not the first to do it; Lincoln Riley made it fashionable at USC. Yet, the way Sanders has effectively used it in the last 11 days is unlike anything the sport has seen. 

As of Wednesday afternoon, he has enough roster spots to bring in 70 new scholarship players for Year 1 at Colorado. Surprised? Don’t be. He promised it. 

Yet, all of this is playing out against a particular moment in college athletics. The conversation surrounding athlete employment has never been as real. The NCAA is fighting battles on numerous fronts, with plaintiffs in Johnson v. NCAA – former Villanova football player Trey Johnson and other Division I athletes – asking athletes to be deemed employees subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board is investigating an unfair labor practice complaint involving the rights of USC football and basketball players. Earlier this week at LEAD1 Association‘s annual spring meeting, new NCAA President Charlie Baker said he doesn’t think athletes want to be employees. 

“I don’t think you’ll find very many student-athletes who want to be employees,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said during a Q&A session Monday at LEAD1 meetings. “I haven’t found many, and there are a lot of really good reasons for that. Obviously, there’s a lot of traffic in the courts at this point about this issue these days, which is going to limit what I would choose to say about it. But I think student-athletes want to be student-athletes. And it’s up to us to figure out how to make that work for them in a variety of environments and in circumstances that are different.”

Athletes who are leaving Sanders’ program are not completely doing it on their accord this spring. Players who spoke with The Athletic this week detailed how they were being brought in for conversations with positions coaches and Sanders, frankly being told they’re cut and shown the door. 

The one-time transfer rule installed in 2021 allows athletes to immediately play at other schools. A recent NCAA rule change also allows for first-year head coaches to cut players as long as they honor scholarship commitments. A Colorado spokesperson told The Athletic the school plans to honor all NCAA rules and bylaws. 

One of the long-running defenses the NCAA has used to attack the proposal of an athlete employee model is the ability to fire players. Yet, that has been happening for years. Deion Sanders has shown that off on a national stage since December. 

“It’s very interesting timing, right?” said Mit Winter, a sports business attorney based in Kansas City. “Because you have Charlie Baker, telling everyone, ‘Oh, they, they can’t be employees. They don’t want to be employees, then they would get fired. Nobody wants that.’ Almost the exact same day he makes those comments. You have all these players from one school, hitting the portal and stories coming out, telling them that the coaches said, ‘You’re cut.’ Firing them, which is just ironic timing.”

Jason Stahl spoke at last month’s congressional hearing on name, image and likeness. The founder of the College Football Players Association has been advocating for athletes to have guaranteed independent medical care and post-football health protections, among others. 

The association nearly launched a chapter at Penn State last summer with the help of Sean Clifford. The initiative fell apart in its late stages. But Stahl has continued to build connections across the nation and talk to athletes. He said in a Wednesday phone call that the association has closely been following what has played out in recent days at Colorado. 

Stahl and his board of directors have been making efforts to reach athletes who were cut, trying to have an understanding of what conspired. He’s also been open about why he finds the NCAA’s tactics regarding NIL and antitrust to be stale. 

“Here we have a world in which the NCAA, and the powers that be in college athletics are, on the very days that they’re talking about employment in general, one of the things they’re worried about is, God forbid, players should be fired,” he said. “Well, of course, we who understand the world of college football, players do get fired. Now, there’s ways you can move players off the team very easily. But what Deion’s doing is actually very helpful here. 

“He is saying the quiet part out loud. It used to be that coaches would keep this under the cover of darkness as much as they could, in terms of how you move guys off a team and the various tools at your disposal to do that. Here we have a man who is showcasing for the world exactly how it’s done in this extraordinary way.”

The thought of athletes being classified as employees has been called the biggest existential threat to college athletics. It’s why the NCAA has been pleading with Congress to enact federal legislation surrounding NIL, hoping to squeeze by antitrust protection to help prevent athletes from being designated as employees of their schools, conferences or the NCAA. 

Whatever ultimately happens could be years away from happening. A set of lawyers at the LEAD1 meetings both agreed there’s “no stopping the employment train.” When that actually comes is the question. 

Deion Sanders will rebuild his roster his way. There’s no doubt about that. Whether it works or not remains to be seen. Of the 51 Colorado players who have entered the portal since it opened in December, a majority have found or will find homes. Others may be out of options. 

The way Sanders has handled business the last few days is just evidence that the NCAA is past the amateurism era. College athletics is in an in-between phase. Athletes are closer to employees than ever before. The question remains: What comes after NIL and portal madness?

“One of the NCAA arguments against employee status is they can be fired. It just doesn’t really hold much water,” Winter said. “When a new coach can come in, and whatever semantics you want to use, clear his entire roster. He’s basically firing the team.”