Actually athletes time in season is limited to I believe 20 hours a week and is to be monitored by the institution. Now we can debate, how many hours are actually spent. ;-)

Is it the look-back that matters, or the forward-looking stability period? Say a freshman shows up in July for camp. Doesn't the university, his "employer," have to make a good faith projection as to whether he will be a full-time employee or part-time employee for a stability period (of a minimum of 6 months)? Between July and January, he's almost certainly over 30 hours per week between the NCAA-counted competition hours (max 20 per week, like Billy mentioned) and the non-counted time required like travel, team meals, etc. AND.....if the university is going to require a minimum number of academic hours for him to maintain athletic eligibility, do you include those in the calculation? Do you include out-of-class study hours too? Because now we're talking more like 60 hours per week during season and probably 30 hours per week out of season.

"Way ahead of ourselves" is probably an understatement....but this is more fun to think about than what's on my desk right now.

I want NCAA football players to have access to long term disability benefits in the event that the extremely violent game they play leads to injuries that qualify as such. That's what I think a union can accomplish. That you're afraid a successful player's union would end NCAA football, frankly, is absurd. Do you think that's what the players want? How is that even remotely in their interests? Simply put, the game they play, a game the makes their universities a lot of money, can lead to serious long term health consequences. I think the NCAA should provide coverage for that. Why is that even remotely controversial, and what about that implies that I want football to be gone forever?

Odd. I asked you a simple question, and you did everything but answer. Let's cut through any misinterpretation: Do you or do you not support NCAA football? As a fan?

That's important because it sets the context of your argument. Thinking that a player's union would end NCAA football, AS WE NOW KNOW IT, is anything but absurd. And to answer your question, no, I don't think players want to end football, but I'm also not naive enough to believe they are acting in their own best interests. Plus, we are talking about players from ONE TEAM, hardly a representative majority. 

Since the NCAA itself is not the entity making billions of dollars off these games, how do you propose the NCAA funds this healthcare coverage? Here's one possibility: the union demands the NCAA provides coverage. The NCAA turns that demand over to the universities. The universities, by a wide margin, elect not to field a football team citing prohibitive healthcare costs. This fall, we are left with watching Ohio State play UCLA or some similar battle of the remaining goliaths.

BLSOS cheers the victory, meanwhile hundreds, if not thousands, of young college football players are left without a game. Not of their own choosing, but because "it's for the best." 

I didn't claim it was complicated. I claimed it was expensive, and asked who would pay for it. I'm still waiting for your answer.

Edit to add: You can't single out football players. Whatever you do for the football team will also have to be done for every other scholarship athlete on campus. It will likely extend beyond just the scholarships. It may also extend beyond merely athletes to include trainers, cheerleaders, band members, etc. 



Actually, no, it doesn't. You don't post often enough to be an obvious football fan. So the jury is mostly certain out on that one. 

It wouldn't be restricted simply to football players, that's just the specific sport Robert Fox and I ended up discussing. Football, I suspect, would account for the majority of the long term disability claims, however. 

the Union's list of demands are listed on their website: www.ncpanow.org.

Their demands are extremely modest. The sky is falling attitude some folks are spouting here (not you, you've been a great contributor to this thread) is really overblown. 

What percentage of employers provide long term disability coverage? I have always been under the impression that it was fairly low.