Dartmouth hoops players vote to join local union - ESPN

The Dartmouth men's basketball team voted 13-2 Tuesday to join its local service employees union, marking the first time any group of college athletes has taken a public action as employees of their school and potentially setting a precedent that could significantly alter the business of college sports.

Last month, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled the Dartmouth players were employees of their school. Tuesday's vote was the players' first official action as employees and the next step toward bargaining with the school. The players say they hope other Ivy League teams will follow suit to create a conferencewide collective bargaining unit.

The university filed its appeal of the regional director's decision on Tuesday afternoon. The school could potentially continue fighting the idea that athletes are employees up through the Supreme Court — a process that could take years to complete. In a statement Tuesday, the university strongly disagreed with players being classified as employees.

«For Ivy League students who are varsity athletes, academics are of primary importance, and athletic pursuit is part of the educational experience,» the statement said. «Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate.»

Dartmouth's administration filed a motion last week to try to delay Tuesday's vote but was unsuccessful. The public results of the vote mean the players are now at least one step further through their process than Northwestern University's football players progressed in 2015 in what was previously the most notable push to unionize athletes in modern college sports.

The Dartmouth players' effort is one of several unfolding legal