Shabazz Napier on NCAA Unionization: Money Is Needed

Shabazz Napier got a free ride to UConn. He thinks UConn got the free ride. 

He told reporters in the lead up to tonight’s national championship game that unionizing players might be one way to prevent players from going to bed “starving” during the season. “We as student athletes get utilized for what we do so well,” the UConn point guard pointed out. “We are definitely best to get a scholarship to our universities, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t cover everything. We do have hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food and sometimes money is needed. I think, you know, Northwestern has an idea, and we’ll see where it goes.”

Northwestern University football players won the right to form a union from a National Labor Relations Board representative last month. The full NLRB considers an appeal from the school this month and Northwestern’s players decide whether they want to unionize or not at the end of April.

“You feel like you want something in return,” Napier said in response to his school earning money from his jersey sales and likeness. “Like I said, there are hungry nights that I go to bed and I am starving. So something can change, something should change. But if it doesn’t, at the end of the day, we’ve been doing this for so long, so.”