The National Labor Relations Board on Monday declined to assert jurisdiction in the historic Northwestern University case after football players had been deemed to be employees by the regional NLRB director last year.

Effectively, the decision is a major victory for Northwestern and the NCAA.

A ruling in support of the CAPA would have affected all private schools with football programs in the NCAA's top tier, as the NLRB governs the relationships between private business and employees. There are 17 of these universities: Baylor, Boston College, BYU, Duke, Miami, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa, USC, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.