The end of the PL?

I would think it would depend where money is coming from.

I think someone would be hard pressed to say a non scholarship athlete is an employee of the college.

The next step would be scholarship athletes.  I would still think no.   By that regard, an academic scholarship would make someone an employee of the college.

NIL is another story.   If a school is handing a person cash over and above their scholarship, one could reasonably argue that person is an employee.   If Matt Sluka becomes the spokesman for Coney Island hot dogs, that's on Coney Island, not Holy Cross.   A common sense approach to this should not affect HC or the Patriot League, and long as the schools are not paying players

I assume that this Congressional subcomittee is attempting to come up with legislation. It behooves conferences big and small to make themselves heard so that the Congress has an understanding of the scope of the issues and how these problems will affect different schools, different sports within all schools, non scholarship v. scholarship, revenue producing v. non revenue producing, etc. Conferences certainly shouldn't rely on the NCAA to fairly represent all member schools in taking positions on this (or any) topic.

State employee compensation is often capped, in that no state employee can make more than X. This is why coaches at public universities in the Power 5 conferences are employees of an incorporated association, rather than the state. A few of the NIL deals are so lucrative that the amount would be capped if the athlete was classified as a state employee.

If athletes were classified as employees, it would have wide-ranging and industry-leveling ramifications. Specifics would take some time to figure out but the change in the landscape would be seismic. There would be, in my opinion, a significant and wholesale elimination of several Olympic sports almost overnight. Things like a baseball team's travel budget would get reallocated to handle additional expenses created/necessitated by the reclassification. What does that mean? No more varsity baseball team. Sure, baseball programs would survive at some schools, but the majority of them and other sports at the D1 level would cease to exist. Maybe it would force several D1 schools to revisit reclassifying to D2 or D3. Some schools might abandon athletics entirely like SFNY.

Considering the blowback Hartford received a few years ago for initiating the reclassification to D3 plus the palpable sadness that existed after SFNY's announcement... I don't think anybody could argue with a straight face that eliminating programs or a significant reclassification of sports would be met with much positive feedback.

Also, people who think that schools can just tap into their endowment whenever they want to fund athletic or any other endeavors on campus obviously don't understand how endowments work.

I also think it complicates the relationship an institution has with other scholarship recipients in other disciplines. Say someone is on a scholarship as a chemistry student, and they're spending 20 hours a week in a lab conducting research. If they're part of something that helps draw significant eyeballs to the college/university, what's stopping them from asking for the same employment protections that could be placed upon athletes? The slope is excessively slippery here.

I realize that many of you don't care about the swim, tennis, lacrosse, baseball, softball and/or track teams, but those are the types of sports that stand to take it on the chin the most if this all comes to pass. There, I think, would still be opportunities to participate in those sports but likely at a club level, which I think we all agree doesn't generate the level of attention or fundraising dollars as varsity status. Of course, schools that drop sports are probably going to get sued but if Congress or others force an employee model on collegiate sports, well, what choice will those schools have who can't afford to completely revamp their economic model?

Fran McCaffrey said in response to a question on NIL that agents for mid-major players are shopping them for deals before the student-athlete enters the portal.  He went on to say the NCAA has screwed this up royally.  Fran may be right on this front.  

I didn't see much blowback when D2 NY Tech eliminated their entire athletic department. 

They got plenty of coverage when they were a national contender in Men's Lacrosse (four national championships in 1997, 2003, 2005, 2008) and made a College World Series appearance under former MLB player Frank Catalanotto in 2019.