A decision on whether college football players at Northwestern University should be permitted to unionize is expected later this month from the National Labor Relations Board, just as players are in training preparing for the upcoming season.

In 2014 Peter Ohr, the NLRB’s Chicago regional director, ruled that the football players with scholarships were employees and had the right to unionize because they benefit the university by generating revenue, as well as increasing alumni donations and applications for enrollment. Northwestern University appealed the decision to the five-member NLRB in Washington.

But a positive decision from the NLRB could open up a host of other questions that might result in universities eliminating sports altogether.

In the ruling, the Chicago NLRB held that Northwestern football players are employees, since the players “perform football-related services for the Employer [Northwestern] under a contract for hire in return for compensation.”

Additionally, since the Northwestern football team brought in $235 million in revenues for the university from 2003 to 2012, the NLRB held that “the scholarships the players receive [are] compensation for the athletic services they perform for the Employer” According to the NLRB’s logic, the scholarships constitute a “transfer of economic value” — the football players raise money for the school, and the school pays them for it in scholarships — fitting within the definition of an employee under common law.

The ruling also held that the burden of proof was on Northwestern to prove that the football players weren’t employees — basically impossible to do under the common-law definition of employee.

Here are five reasons why the NLRB should reverse Ohr’s decision.

Unionized players would lose. Currently players do not have to pay tax on their scholarships. If they were considered employees, the Internal Revenue Service would likely decide otherwise. Last year the Northwestern football team comprised 112 players. Out of this group 85 received grant-in-aid scholarships. The 85 Northwestern students on scholarship received an average of $61,000 per academic year to pay for their tuition, fees, room, board, and books. Players who lived off campus received monthly stipends of between $1,200 and $1,600 to cover their living expenses. That adds up to about $78,000.

According to my calculations, in 2015 an athlete on scholarship would have had to pay about $12,700 in individual income taxes (assuming the standard deduction and no dependents) as well as almost $6,000 in payroll taxes. In addition, union dues are about 1% to 2% of a paycheck, or about $1,170. That adds up to $19,870, a steep price to pay for playing college athletics and joining a union. Few students would “pay” for that privilege.

Many athletes want to play college sports. The Northwestern students are not exploited. For each athlete who thinks he is mistreated, a dozen others are available to take his place. Furthermore, athletes do not have to play at a National Collegiate Athletic Association school. Many people play at junior colleges. An athletic scholarship is one of the few ways that low-income young men can make it to college. At a time when 58% of college graduates are women, men need all the help they can get.

Speaking of women, they would lose. Ohr decided that players on revenue-raising teams who produce a “transfer of economic value” could unionize. Not only does that leave out teams that do not always raise revenue, such as baseball, as well as those that never raise money, such as swimming, wrestling, fencing, and track, it also leaves out women altogether.

Other than basketball at some universities, women’s teams never raise revenue due to lower attendance at games.

Women’s athletic scholarships do not constitute a “transfer of economic value.” The omission of women could pose substantial Title IX problems for universities, because under court interpretations of Title IX women are supposed to be treated the same as men. Otherwise, according to the Department of Education, their civil rights are violated.

Universities already have to make sure the same proportion of women as men join top division teams, with the result that some men’s teams have closed down because fewer women choose to participate. One can quickly imagine the cries of horror from feminists, the negative headlines, and the flood of lawsuits if male but not female players are permitted to unionize.

Differential treatment of football team members. Treating football students on scholarship as employees immediately opens a hornets’ nest as to how to treat students who are not on scholarship. A team could have some students on scholarship and the rest who pay tuition. Out of 112 players, 85 were on scholarship.

Would the remaining 27 students on the team not form part of the union? Would they be considered “free riders” in that they might receive benefits of a better schedule without having to pay union dues? Or, would they be required to pay agency fees to the union, in the same way the public teachers in California have to pay fees to the California Teachers’ Association?

Just because an activity generates revenue, it does not mean that those who do it are employees. Many activities generate income for universities, and no one has suggested that everyone involved in them are employees. Some students perform in bands or in theater groups that raise some revenue. Are they employees?

It is not the role of the NLRB to decide that every student who helps Northwestern raise a dollar is an employee. The NLRB reasoning of merely contributing to raising funds should not put students in an employee relationship with the university.

The real story is that the NLRB wants to unionize as many people as possible.

It has already instituted various measures, which it believes will increase union membership. It has allowed small subsections of workers in nonunionized companies to be represented by a union rather than the entire company, and it has reduced the time between petitions for union representation and an election from 40 to 15 days.

It would be more convincing that this was being done in the interests of workers if the NLRB had also allowed workers in unionized firms to opt out of the union and if it had sped up petitions to decertify a union. The hypocrisy of the asymmetry is telling.

The NLRB is likely to come out in support of allowing Northwestern University football players to unionize. This is likely to be the end of college sports as we know it today. With the NLRB involved, colleges are not going to want to deal with the additional expense and the administrative headaches, including lawsuits, of running a college athletics program.

This would be a loss to the schools, to the alumni, and to the tens of thousands of young men whose only opportunity to attend college is through an athletic scholarship.