Player movement: Is it time for college football to turn pro?

Deseret News: On Sunday, a letter signed “Players of the Pac-12” was published on the Players’ Tribune. Titled “#WeAreUnited,” it listed grievances spanning health, race, economics and hierarchies — in short, it denounced an imbalance of power. And it promised a boycott of the season should its thorough list of demands not be “guaranteed in writing.”

It has to do with a convergence around this moment. Throughout the NCAA’s existence, challenges to the status quo have proceeded along varying tracks. Antitrust, civil rights, compensation, labor, etc. But in the pandemic and the protests unleashed by police killing George Floyd, Pac-12 athletes have discovered one moment that unites the varying tracks of grievance. And stuck at home, using Zoom, they’ve organized around it.

How COVID-19 is affecting the power balance in college sports

Unified by COVID-19, players are demanding more from the system they fuel. The budding movement could lead to a seismic transfer of power and upheaval in college sports.

Deseret News