From student-athletes to employees: How will Flagler athletics respond?

By Audrey Cress

College athletics is looking at a possible major change from student-athletes to employees of the school in major revenue sports. This state of transition is shaking the ground under collegiate sports and the faculty who manage them.

According to Matt Green, the Senior Associate Director of Athletics at Flagler College, the result of this transition could mean big changes for athletes at smaller schools – including Flagler College.

“If that trickled down to Division II, quite honestly, that would completely change the landscape and probably eliminate athletics at a lot of smaller institutions,” Green said. “Flagler is a small private institution, so it would change the model and shake things up.”

This hypothetical world of only college athlete employees started with NCAA v. Alston. On June 21, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA can’t enforce certain limits on student-athletes. This put a crack in the door for greater athlete compensation to fall through.

Johnson v. NCAA, July 11, 2024, marked a major shift when the court said athletes are not categorically excluded from employee status. Less than a year later, House v. NCAA made it possible for schools to allow directly paying Division I athletes starting July 1, 2025.

In a last-ditch effort to preserve the amateurism model in college athletics, a federal executive order directed agencies to clarify that college athletes are not employees on July 24, 2025.

While currently only D-I college athletes can be paid as employees, there is a very present possibility that it will make its way to D-II athletes.

As a school with D-II athletics, Flagler College is pondering what that would mean for the Flagler College Athletics Department.

This lurking possibility would not only mean salaries for what were once only considered “student-athletes” or “amateurs,” but would also include the expense of benefits and human resource departments.

“We simply don’t have the funds or resources to pay student-athletes,” Green said. “For many small private institutions, it would mean rethinking athletics entirely.”

In terms of what rethinking athletics would look like for Flagler, there isn’t mention of a new marketing campaign to profit from the department, or presentation for additional funding. There is a possibility that these additions may become essential to the function of Flagler athletics.

The schools who once worked to be a part of D-II would then be considered what is now Division III athletics.

“There’d be no athletic scholarship,” Green said. “They’d be eligible for all the institutional merit money, academic money, that sort of thing. But it would essentially really be students that are participating in athletics, and not the traditional model that everybody thinks.”

While the idea of a sports without scholarship opportunities would be a major plot twist in Flagler Athletics, Flagler athletic directors have repeated verbatim that Flagler sports are not made for building revenue.

“We make maybe $10,000 or $12,000 in ticket sales all year long,” Director of Athletics Jud Damon said. “That’s not funding an athletic program. We are not selling jerseys, we are not having 80,000 people at a game. Flagler does not have sports to make money.”

The why of Flagler athletics, echoed by Flagler athletic directors, is in the core covenants built within the department: accountability, integrity, professionalism, sportsmanship and teamwork.

Damon explained that while they aren’t making revenue from sports, Flagler’s image is greatly enhanced when athletes travel for games and tournaments – representing Flagler at events across the country.

Green mentioned that Flagler Athletics brought a guaranteed number of students to the school every year, raising funds for the school overall with tuition.

“Our goal is to develop high-character students who are prepared to contribute beyond the playing field,” Green said. If Flagler Athletics drastically changes, as has been predicted, the values of the department remain the same.