UAB becomes first D-I football team to join PA
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Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer
UAB football players say their entire roster has signed up for Athletes.org, making them the first Division I football team to publicly join the players’ association. They were introduced to the group by an unexpected source: their head coach.
Trent Dilfer gathered his team for a voluntary meeting in mid-April to encourage them to prepare for a future when college athletes might be able to negotiate for a larger share of their sport’s revenue.
“They’re going to have a seat at the table,” Dilfer told ESPN. “I wanted to make sure I helped pour gasoline on something that is going to happen no matter what. I might as well use my influence to help it happen faster on behalf of our players.”
Dilfer introduced the team to Athletes.org, one of several companies attempting to organize athletes for potential revenue sharing discussions. UAB players told ESPN every member of the team signed up to join the organization after hearing its pitch.
The team has no plans to bargain with their school at this point, but their decision to join en masse is symbolic of the growing momentum for players to organize. Quarterback Jacob Zeno said the move shows the players’ growing interest in having a voice in a new model for college sports.
“In a way, we’ve been cheated out of money, and decisions are being made behind our back,” Zeno told ESPN. “It’s not really fair because we do so much for the sport, for the school and the conference. We should at least deserve to know what’s going on and what decisions are being made.”
UAB didn’t immediately comment when reached Monday morning.
The college sports industry is in the midst of unprecedented change. A slew of legal challenges — including antitrust lawsuits, employment complaints and competing state laws — is pushing the NCAA toward a more professional business model. The shifting rules have made it difficult for the association, conferences and school athletic directors to govern their sports. An increasing number of NCAA decision-makers have acknowledged this spring that to regain some control they may ultimately have to bargain with players.
Reaching a bargaining agreement would be simpler and more efficient if players were represented by a single organization like the players’ associations that exist in professional sports, says Athletes.org (AO) founder Jim Cavale. His company is one of several entities competing to serve that role if bargaining occurs.
There are a number of crucial unanswered questions that could shape those future negotiations: Which athletes will have the opportunity and leverage to bargain? How will they group themselves (by sport, by league, by some other unit)? Will they be negotiating as unionized employees or as independent contractors seeking a portion of television money via a group deal for their name, image and likeness rights?
Cavale said he believes answers will arrive within the next 12-15 months, perhaps via a settlement of the pending House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit, which argues in part that players deserve a cut of their sports’ lucrative broadcast contracts. A loss at trial in that case could cost the NCAA billions of dollars. Multiple power conference athletic directors also have told ESPN in recent weeks that they expect a settlement in the House case could be the catalyst for a new revenue sharing system.
Ongoing attempts to formally unionize some athletes through the National Labor Relations Board could also have a major impact on future collective bargaining models. The NLRB is arguing in two pending cases — one at Dartmouth and another at USC — that some athletes are employees of their schools and have the right to form unions. Dartmouth is appealing a recent ruling in its case that gave its basketball players the right to unionize. In the USC case, both sides are due to provide final arguments to the administrative law judge in July. Because of a lengthy anticipated appeals process, neither case is expected to reach a conclusion in the coming year.
The NCAA has been steadfast in saying athletes should not be considered employees. While drawing a hard line at employment, NCAA president Charlie Baker told ESPN earlier this year he thinks some sort of players’ association could be “enormously positive.”
Each entity aiming to represent athletes at the bargaining table employs a slightly different strategy to gather a critical mass of athlete support. Two groups that currently manage or represent NIL-based collectives — The Collective Association and SANIL — say the collectives’ existing ties with athletes would make it simple for those groups to negotiate and distribute a share of television rights money to the players. The College Football Players Association, an organization established by a former Minnesota professor, has been working to build a membership with more traditional labor organizing methods.
Cavale and AO CEO Brandon Copeland said they are trying to lay the groundwork now so players are organized to take advantage of whatever model emerges from the current murky legal landscape.
“We’re not in there to get them to boycott, but we do understand the power they can have,” Cavale said. “When it is time to negotiate, we’ll be prepared to have UAB be a part of that negotiation. We’re building the pipes for the negotiation of the new deal for college athletics — the pipes for the athletes to be in that conversation.”
AO says its current membership comprises 2,945 college athletes — 1,348 of them are football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball players from power conferences, a group Cavale refers to as the “Power 10k” because there are roughly 10,000 athletes that fit that category. He said he’d like to have half of the Power 10k signed up to his organization by the end of 2024.
Members have access to support services such as legal advice, medical second opinions and mental health professionals for free. The company is funded by venture capital investors and plans to make money in the future by taking a percentage of some group licensing deals they hope to strike on behalf of their members. By comparison, the College Football Players Association is funding its attempts to organize players through donations and membership dues.
Copeland, a recently retired linebacker who taught classes at an Ivy League school and served as an NFLPA player rep during his 10-year pro career, said they have been focused on trying to grow their membership and teach players more about their industry. He told ESPN he tries to thread a needle between letting athletes steer the ship toward a future model and guiding them as they attempt to learn more.
Prior to the UAB meeting most of their outreach to players has been through social media and word-of-mouth campaigns, Copeland said. He and Cavale say they are in conversations with several power conference schools about setting up visits with their full team in the next couple of months.
“It’s been really one-on-one,” Copeland said. “To get into a room like [UAB], hopefully this has a domino effect.”
Copeland said one of their challenges has been convincing players who are “in a lot of ways living their dreams right now” that they are not getting everything they could be getting. During his presentation to the UAB team earlier this month, Copeland said he saw several “aha moments” sink in for players.
At one point, Copeland asked the players how many of them felt the NCAA would have the athletes’ best interest in mind while shaping a new business model. No one in the room raised their hand.
Zeno, who is entering his final season as the Blazers’ quarterback, and running back Isaiah Jacobs both told ESPN the team meeting was an “eye-opening” experience. Zeno said the need for a players’ association sunk in after hearing that coaches, schools and athletic directors all have their own dedicated trade associations to advocate for their views of what the future of the sport should look like.
“They have all these people making decisions, and we’re not included in it,” Zeno said. “To have a platform gives a lot of power to players — this is a real big deal.”
Jacobs said he sees a future in which a broader group of players can push for a bigger piece of television revenue as well as other resources like increased mental health support from their schools.
Jacobs said Dilfer’s trust in AO was an important factor in his decision to sign up. Dilfer told ESPN he has no stake in AO’s business but believes in their approach and was pleased with some of the resources it offers for players now. Dilfer said he believes any coach that claims to be “player-centric” should be encouraging their team to organize.
“I think this is a revelatory time for college football coaches,” Dilfer said. “It’s going to reveal if they are about their players or about themselves. It’s not bad if they are about themselves, but the players are going to know.”
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Ryan S. Clark
Many of Mikko Rantanen’s greatest moments have come in a Colorado Avalanche sweater. It’s just that the most defining moment of his career came at their expense.
It wasn’t enough that the Dallas Stars were trailing by two goals. It was also the fact that Rantanen scored a hat trick in a string of four unanswered goals that saw his current team, the host Stars, eliminate his old team, the Avalanche, in a 4-2 win Saturday in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals at the American Airlines Center.
“Obviously, the feeling was incredible to win a series,” Rantanen said in his postgame media availability. “This series was not exactly what I expected. I expected a seven-game series, even before Game 1. The ups and downs in the series. … Belief was there with the group the whole time. Obviously, I was able to make a pay to get the first one and the crowd started to roll.”
The Stars, attempting to reach the conference finals a third straight time, will advance to the semifinal round in which they will await the winner of series featuring the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets. That encounter will be decided Sunday in Game 7 in Winnipeg.
Soon, the Stars’ collective focus will shift to another Central Division foe. But for now? The attention before, during, and after the game, was on Rantanen.
Part of what made the Avalanche-Stars series arguably the most intriguing first-round series in either conference was the fact it placed two 100-point teams that are in championship window against each other. But, it also came with several subplots with the notable being the team that traded quite a bit to land Rantanen — with the hope he could win them a Stanley Cup now — needed him to defeat the team that he won a championship with back in 2022.
With one assist through the first four games, there was a discussion about if the Stars could manage to win with a sputtering Rantanen on top of the fact they were already without two of their best players in defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson.
Rantanen responded with a three-point performance in Game 5, and a four-point performance in Game 6 only to then have a hand in each goal on Saturday. His first goal came on the power-play with 12:12 remaining in the third period when he found enough space to fire a wrist shot that beat MacKenzie Blackwood.
Then came the game-tying goal and the significance it carried. The Stars went on the power play went Avalanche forward Jack Drury was called for holding. Drury part of the trade package the Carolina Hurricanes used to get Rantanen in late January before they would trade him to the Stars.
Drury’s penalty opened the door for Rantanen to score a game-tying goal that might be one of, if not, his signature salvo. Rantanen skated into the Avalanche zone in a 1-on-3 before he split two players before going around the net for a wrap-around goal that went off the skate of Samuel Girard with 6:14 left.
Three minutes later, the Stars received another power-play opportunity that saw Rantanen along with another former Avalanche forward in Matt Duchene work together to find Wyatt Johnston for the game-winning goal.
In the final minute, the Avalanche pulled Blackwood in the attempt to grab a late goal and force over time. Instead? Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger withstood a barrage that officially ended when Stars forward Tyler Seguin got the puck out of the zone only for Rantanen to skate in on an open net for the hat trick with three seconds left.
“I couldn’t care less who scored for them, I really couldn’t,” Avalanche captain and left winger Gabriel Landeskog said when asked about what it was like to watch Rantanen score a hat trick. “Mikko is one of my best friends and I love him, but I couldn’t care if he scored or if somebody else scored.”
For eight full seasons, Rantanen was part of a homegrown movement that saw the Avalanche go from finishing with what was then the worst record in the salary cap era back in 2016-17 to become a perennial favorite to win the Stanley Cup, which did they did in 2023, while also becoming a model for the need to build through the draft.
Building through stars such as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Landeskog and Rantanen allowed the Avalanche to become a success. As did the moves they made to get other key figures like Valeri Nichushkin and Devon Toews.
Like all teams in a championship window, the Avs were facing the prospect of possibly making a difficult decision. They had yet to agree to a new contract with Rantanen, who was a pending unrestricted free agent. Then, came the blockbuster trade that few throughout the league saw coming.
The Avalanche traded Rantanen in a three-team trade that saw them get Martin Necas and Drury along with two draft picks. Rantanen’s time with the Carolina Hurricanes was limited to just two goals and six points in 13 games.
Despite the fact the Hurricanes are also among that cadre of championship contenders, Rantanen struggled to find cohesion in Raleigh. Rather than run the risk of watching leave for nothing in free agency, the Hurricanes put out feelers to a few teams with the Stars being one of them.
A long-time admirer of Rantanen, the Stars packaged two first-round picks, three second-round picks and former prized prospect Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen. They then signed him to an eight-year contract worth $12 million annually.
“It’s two things: It’s where our team’s at, and it’s Mikko Rantanen,” Stars general manager Jim Nill told ESPN back in March.
Rantanen finished the regular season with five goals and 18 points in 20 games prior to the showdown with his former team.
Not only did Rantanen’s hat trick condemn his former team to their second first-round exit since winning the Stanley Cup, but it continued a theme of former Avalanche eliminating their previous employers.
The Avalanche and Stars faced each other in last season’s Western Conference semifinal that saw Duchene, a former Colorado first-round pick, score the game-winning goal.
A year later, it was another former Avalanche first-round pick who delivered the devastating blow.
“It seems pretty fitting,” Johnston said about Rantanen. “Obviously, we want to win for each other and I think that goes a little extra when it’s a guy like that who is such a big part of our team and was there for a long time and everyone knows the trade that went on. It’s so awesome. We’re so happy as a group for him.”
As if Rantanen scoring a hat trick in a four-goal comeback wasn’t enough, there’s also the fact that this is now the ninth consecutive Game 7 that Stars coach Peter DeBoer has won his career.
DeBoer’s nine wins in Game 7s broke a tie with Darryl Sutter for the most in NHL history. It was also DeBoer’s third game 7 wins with the Stars.
“I felt something was going to happen,” DeBoer said. “But I could not have predicted that.”
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