Two of the biggest conferences in college sports cancelled their fall seasons on Tuesday. The move is about a fear of player power rather than Covid-19
On the night of Sunday 9 August, in the birth of an alliance between #WeAreUnited, a faction of players threatening to withdraw their labor without improved working conditions, and #WeWantToPlay, a group lobbying to be allowed to play, college football players across the US declared that they want to play this season, but they want to play on the condition that they “ultimately create a college football players association.”
As Hunter Reynolds of the University of Michigan and College Athlete Unity (CAU) told us: “We all want to play the sports that we have been practicing our whole lives, we simply want to do it in an environment that is as safe as possible. And I think the union talks are something that has been discussed since Northwesterners tried unionizing years ago.” Within approximately 12 hours, reports swirled that the Big Ten was cancelling its season and most of the other Power Five conferences – the largest and richest in college sports – were considering following suit.
Related: Why college football is the perfect storm for Covid-19
Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva, and Johanna Mellis are co-hosts of The End of Sport podcast
