Last year there was a burst of excitement in some quarters over the prospect of college football players forming a union. Leftists nearly always think that unions are good because they supposedly promote social justice and when an apparent majority of the players on Northwestern’s team said they wanted to form a union, that gladdened many a collectivist heart. Then, the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board gave the players the green light. Joy!

Yesterday, however, the full National Labor Relations Board unanimously declined jurisdiction, which means that it won’t pursue the case further.

Joy crushed.

Some people insist that the fight will go on. For example, Eddie Comeaux, professor of education at UC Riverside is quoted in this Diverse Education article as saying, “Given what we’ve seen happen and the traction that we’ve seen, we are unlikely to see the case die here.”

Professor Comeaux thinks that the case will “escalate further to a federal court.” No, that’s not likely. NLRB decisions can be appealed to federal circuit courts, but I think it would be freakish to get a panel (three judges sit on court of appeals panels) where a majority was willing to overrule the NLRB on a decision not to take up a case.

Comeaux points to the O’Bannon case, but that was an antitrust case where the plaintiff had good grounds for his suit. The NCAA really does restrain trade in violation of the Sherman Act. That has no bearing on the issues here, which involve the definition of employee under the National Labor Relations Act.

In any event, the idea of unionizing football teams at some private universities (state law would govern that question at state universities, which are the great majority of big-time football and basketball schools) was always a silly idea. For once, the NLRB has made a good call.