Chris Hayes: "Student Athletes" Are Uncompensated Workers
MSNBC: 'Players like Louisville's Kevin Ware make millions of dollars for their schools. But they're not employees--so they don't qualify for workers' comp if they get injured on the court or the field.'
CHRIS HAYES: If you happen to be among the millions of people who watched the NCAA tournament last night, you watched as Louisville Cardinals sophomore guard Kevin Ware broke his leg during an awkward fall after a routine move: an injury so gruesome it left players in tears, and more than a few people feeling sick to their stomachs.
People who saw it in real time howled involuntarily. Everyone in the stadium was affected. Social media blew up.
Right away, people wanted to know if Ware’s leg was going to be okay, and if he was ever going to play basketball again. But they also wanted to know—I wanted to know—if Ware isn’t going to play basketball again because of this injury, is he going to be able to go back to Louisville next year, and is he going to have a scholarship?
If Ware isn’t going to have a scholarship, what’s going to happen to him? And in any case, who is going to pay his medical bills? Is he covered for this? And most profoundly and urgently, why isn’t Kevin Ware being paid for his labor?
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