Women's basketball players formed an advocacy group. They can't get a meeting.
For more than six months, dozens of active Division I women’s basketball players have been quietly forming a players association, hoping to gain a say in a massive era of change for college sports. To do so, they have joined the United College Athletes Association, a nonprofit focused on athlete advocacy — and notably not a union, seeing that efforts to unionize college athletes have been unsuccessful to this point. Then in late January, the players sent separate letters to the commissioners of the Big Ten and SEC requesting a meeting to discuss a potential partnership for rulemaking and related matters.
In all, 120 players signed the letters. The association, which mostly includes players from the two power conferences, has at least one rep from every Big Ten team and a majority of SEC programs. Both conferences declined to meet.
In a response to Andrew Cooper, a UCAA co-founder and former D-I runner, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey noted that his conference is in regular communication with the SEC Women’s Basketball Student-Athlete Leadership Council, which participates in meetings with the conference office, athletic directors and other school administrators.
Tony Petitti, the Big Ten’s commissioner, wrote in his response: “Given the personal relationships on campus, we encourage athletes to communicate directly with their coaches and athletic staff, who then coordinate on issues of concern with the Conference.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/02/18/ucaa-womens-basketball-advocacy-group-sec-big-ten/