College Unionization and Why College Video Games Aren't Dead

The same underlying movements which took the NCAA Football series off of the market this past year may be what brings the series back in the future.

If you've been living under a rock, Northwestern University football players were granted the right to unionize by a federal judge. In that decison, the ruling made it possible that all private schools could see their players granted union rights if they so choose as employees of the school.

Those private FBS schools are: Baylor, Boston College, BYU, Duke, Miami, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa, USC, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.

Those schools in particular could incur millions in additional costs to their football programs -- and would be required to provide benefits likely outside of the NCAA's jurisdiction. This could lead to private schools forming their own division and leaving the NCAA completely. In that harsh scenario, the 17 schools listed above could be the 17 most powerful schools in college athletics since they will have the means (and requirements) to pay players in a union. Of course, to stay relevant, it's likely the Power 5 conferences could begin to look at ditching the NCAA altogether as well, free meals aren't enough to entice players to pick Alabama over a salary and employee benefits at Vanderbilt. This really is that big of a deal.

So where does all of that potentially leave college football as a video games product?

Most likely, it will mean that a license will be given to someone at a bit of a higher price per school than before, most likely to help cover expenses. It would likely mean only the private schools and the biggest power conference schools would be more than open to a video game once more with rules no longer against such a movement.

It is important to note, however, that a video games license would be one of the smaller licenses these big schools would likely be negotiating -- and its likely such a move may still be a couple of years away from happening after the fallout of the unionization movement finally takes hold.

We'll be watching the groundbreaking movements in college football closely, the whole thing is going to change in some way it seems sooner rather than later.