A heated debate about college sports recently has been raging in Congress and the federal court system: Should college athletes be considered employees who should be provided hourly wages and labor rights?
The NCAA and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz say definitely not.
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But player advocates say yes, they should. And there’s one team they can hold up as the poster case for how players are treated as employees under the control of a pro-style program — Colorado with football coach Deion Sanders.
Sanders, 58, has been unabashed about it, most recently with an NFL-style disciplinary system in which players are fined for team rules violations, including $500 for being late to practice.
“Viewed in a broader context, what Sanders is doing is an extension of longstanding control tactics by NCAA coaches,” Illinois law professor Michael LeRoy told USA TODAY Sports. “They set schedules, manage work, expect performance, push out or cut deficient players, recruit better ones. But Sanders’ approach strips any remaining veneer from the idea that his players are not employees.”
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The way he operates and markets his program takes the debate to a different level, complete with dozens of annual free-agent signings and a de facto waiver wire for players who have fallen out of favor.
“At the end of the day, man, this is an NFL-based program,” Colorado receiver Sincere Brown said in September. “It’s like a mini-NFL program.”
What’s at stake in this debate about college athletes as employees?
It’s about more money and rights for players. Those who oppose college athletes as employees generally say it would be too expensive for colleges that already are struggling to come up with the money to pay players under the revenue-sharing terms of the House vs. NCAA legal settlement.
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One pending lawsuit, Johnson vs. the NCAA, wants college athletes classified as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act so they can be entitled to wages for services they provided unrelated to academics. That case is still active in federal court after being filed by plaintiffs attorney Paul McDonald in 2019.
“Certainly, what’s going on in Colorado is a big flashing light kind of thing,” McDonald told USA TODAY Sports.
But to McDonald and his case, the issue is much simpler: Why can regular college students earn employee wages for selling popcorn at games in a work-study program but not student-athletes for playing in the games? He’s pushing for an answer in court.
The political football of college athletes as employees
Separately, under the National Labor Relations Act, players as employees could unionize and reach a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with private schools or conferences for more money and benefits. In exchange, they would make tradeoffs in a CBA, such as a cap on the number of times a player can transfer to a new school.
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In 2021, the then-general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, Jennifer Abruzzo, issued a memo that said she considered college athletes to be employees under the NLRA.
“Under common law, an employee includes a person ‘who perform(s) services for another and (is) subject to the other’s control or right of control,’” the memo stated. The memo said payment for services “is strongly indicative of employee status.”
The Trump Administration rescinded that memo in 2025. Now the U.S. Congress is in conflict about the issue as it considers legislation to regulate college sports. Democrats don’t want to forbid employment status for college athletes while Cruz recently told ESPN it was “absolutely critical” to clarify “that student athletes are not employees.”
The ‘mini-NFL program’ under Deion Sanders
To be sure, Sanders promotes classwork and education at Colorado. He has said he wants to develop his players as young men, not just football players.
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At the same time, probably no other major college sports program in America is a better example of a college team treating players like employees in a setting that advertises itself as a pro development operation. Here are some examples below.
Deion Sanders issues fines for rules violations
Colorado players are fined for infractions like in the NFL — $400 for being late to a meeting and up to $5,000 for “social media misconduct.”
This isn’t the first time a college program has tried this. In 2015, the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia reported Virginia Tech had a system for fining players, including $100 for drawing a personal foul penalty. The newspaper said Virginia Tech’s athletic director “had no idea” about it and discontinued it immediately.
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“The fact that the players are required to follow specific rules and are subject to consequences for violating them is a level of control often seen in the employment context,” Abruzzo told USA TODAY Sports. “This conduct seems to be similar to an employer taking action against a worker for a handbook rule infraction. But, rather than suspend the worker, thus making them unavailable for work (games), for example, he assesses fines.”
Deion Sanders’ pro-style roster control
Sanders pioneered the practice of signing dozens of free-agent transfers every year, even more so than NFL teams. This year, he’s signing players for money under the national revenue-sharing rules that started last July. He also has used the transfer portal as a pro-style waiver wire as an escape hatch for players who underperform. He’s not the only coach who controls roster spots like this, but he’s been the most famous example of it. He’s said he had to “get rid of” the mess he inherited.
“Those of you we don’t run off, we’re gonna make you quit,” Sanders told his inherited Colorado players at his first team meeting in December 2022.
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Deion Sanders ‘wanted pros’ for pro development
Sanders has advertised his program as a pro-development program filled with former NFL players and coaches. Last year, three Pro Football Hall of Famers were on staff. His offensive coordinator last year, Pat Shurmur, previously was the head coach of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and New York Giants.
“We have two new coordinators that are wonderful, that combined I believe they have over 35 years of NFL experience, because I wanted pros,” Sanders said in 2024. “It’s like a navigational system. You can’t tell me where to go unless you’ve been there (the NFL).”
Online classes and reality TV at Colorado
His players previously signed releases or agreements to appear in a reality show featuring Sanders on Amazon Prime Video, including for compensation.
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Many of his players don’t attend classes in-person and do their college classwork online instead. His quarterback son Shedeur Sanders said he attended only one in-person class in his time at Colorado. This isn’t unique to Colorado and isn’t unusual for athletes after the pandemic of 2020, but it doesn’t exactly contribute to the notion players are living the campus life as “student-athletes.” Instead, it adds to the notion these players are separated from the rest of the student body while “working” on a separate revenue-generating mission.
“The rules, the perhaps implied coercion to appear on and promote the reality TV shows for his financial gain, and the lack of taking in-person classes if as a consequence of scheduling conflicts related to games, traveling, practice (and) training where academics is forced to take a second seat to athletics, all together suggest that the player is more akin to an employee than a student,” Abruzzo said.
‘Pro Day’ at Colorado on NFL Network
Sanders hosted a massive “pro day” event last April, in which NFL scouts, coaches, executives and media came to campus to measure his players and watch them work out before the NFL draft. Other schools have “pro days,” too, but this was televised on the NFL Network — the kind of marketing and publicity that other programs want but few can get.
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Sanders called it “a tremendous boost for our program and what we’re trying to accomplish here at CU.”
‘Focused on the NFL’ at Colorado
To legal experts, it’s a matter of control and compensation in exchange for services provided, not marketing. In the Johnson vs. NCAA case, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal set up a test to determine whether minimum-wage law applies to college athletes.
The court said they may be considered employees in this context if they “perform services for another party, that are “necessarily and primarily for the (other party’s) benefit,” under that party’s control or right of control and in return for “express” or “implied” compensation or “in-kind benefits.”
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“My view has long been that the football and basketball players in the Power 5 conferences easily meet the definition of employee,” said Marc Edelman, law professor at Baruch College in New York. “So while Deion Sanders adding fines to compensated athletes marks another obvious indicia of employment status, this decision just seems to be indicative of a far broader scope of control over athletes, extending from control over what they wear to control over their social media.”
Sanders has never tried to hide what he’s been trying to build. At his introductory news conference in December 2022, he said he wanted his players focused on more than making money from their names, images and likenesses (NIL).
“I’m not crazy about the NILs, but I understand the NILs,” Sanders said then. “But I would rather our kids be focused on the NFL, not just the NIL.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Colorado’s Deion Sanders fuels labor debate over college players
