Senator Ayotte raised some questions about the relationship of women's sports and the prospect of student athletes unionizing at UNH recently:
At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing focused on student athletes, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) expressed concerns about the potential impact of athlete compensation and unionization on women's athletic programs and non-revenue generating sports at colleges and universities. In March 2014, the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that scholarship athletes at Northwestern University could unionize. The decision is still awaiting review by the full NLRB.
At the hearing, Ayotte prominently shared concerns raised by the University of New Hampshire regarding the effect of athlete unionization on sports programs that do not produce revenue.
Senator Ayotte asked: "If we start down the road of a compensation model, what will happen in our schools in terms of the sports that aren't at the top... but are still very important to student life? And when I think about Title IX and...the opportunities women have gotten because of Title IX - if you're on campus and this suddenly becomes an employer-employee type model, what does that do for the women's sports if they're not revenue generating, and how do we sustain them if this model changes?"
William Bradshaw, past president of the NCAA and a former athletics director at La Salle University, DePaul University, and Temple University, responded: "I believe it's going to be devastating to all those student athletes, including women who don't produce revenue and who aren't seen as athletes or students who create that revenue...we all know that's going to mean those who can afford to pay for that will, and those who can't won't."
During the hearing, Ayotte referenced comments she received from Marty Scarano, Director of Athletics at the University of New Hampshire, who said: "The possibility of the unionization of intercollegiate athletes is troubling for the University of New Hampshire. The cost associated with unionization and the incumbent compensation for student athletes would greatly diminish opportunities for student athletes, particularly in the so-called Olympic or non-revenue generating sports. In a time of enormous pressure on affordability of higher education, intercollegiate athletics are under scrutiny, particularly in Division I. The vast majority of D1 athletics departments are struggling to make ends meet, relying on subsidies from non-athletics sources, such as general institutional funds or student fees. Unfortunately, the public reads news almost entirely about the 'haves' of intercollegiate athletics-a tiny segment of the college athletics landscape. We speak for the majority of institutions who do not have the resources or media revenue of bigger, highly visible programs."
Also at yesterday's hearing, Ayotte pushed NCAA President Mark Emmert to fix how universities handle sexual assault allegations.
"The athletic department is not where you handle these kind of allegations, so you've got to fix that, Dr. Emmert. Walk out this door and fix that," said Senator Ayotte.