The National College Players Association will likely face the NCAA, Pac-12 and the University of Southern California in court after the National Labor Relations Board reportedly ruled that the parties are legally employers of college football and basketball players.

The decision comes 10 months after the NLRB filed an unfair labor practice charge against the NCAA, the conference and the school. The suit accuses the parties of misclassifying college players as "student-athletes" as well as other violations.

"We are working to make sure college athletes are treated fairly in both the education and business aspects of college sports," players association executive director Ramogi Huma said in a statement Thursday. "Gaining employee status and the right to organize is an important part in ending NCAA sports’ business practices that illegally exploit college athletes’ labor."

"This kind of misclassification deprives these players of their statutory right to organize and to join together to improve their working/playing conditions if they wish to do so," the NLRB’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg. "Our aim is to ensure that these players can fully and freely exercise their rights."