Stanford football players reach key threshold on path to college player unionization
The momentum for collective bargaining within college athletics took another leap this week.
A group of Stanford University football players are establishing the first-ever chapter of the College Football Players Association in a move intended to create a foundation for eventual unionization and collective bargaining, the association and players announced Monday.
In the fifth year of the CFBPA's existence, Stanford became the first school to reach the membership threshold of players necessary to elect representatives. Those include fifth-year senior linebacker Ernest Cooper and offensive lineman Fisher Anderson, who calls the move a "milestone" and "step forward" for all of the sport.
Anderson expects players at other schools to follow the group's lead by establishing chapters so "we can ride the wave together."
"The time is now to do something," said Anderson, who earned 10 starts at center last year for the Cardinal. "This is college football and it's increasingly becoming more like the NFL. At some point, we're likely going to need a CFBPA."
Jason Stahl, the College Football Players Association executive director, described the player-led chapter as a "precursor" to a collective bargaining agreement from the conference level by making it "easier" for leagues to now "voluntarily recognize that bargaining unit" and begin the bargaining process with players. However, what lies ahead is a long, arduous process of rallying players at more ACC schools and beyond to create chapters, eventually sign union cards and then, as a group, present to conference leadership.
Stahl and CFBPA executives presented in front of more than 50 players at a meeting on the Stanford campus in June and then held followup meetings with several smaller groups of players. He did not disclose the number of Stanford players who signed chapter membership with the association.
"Down the line, it would be cool to turn into a players association," said Stanford defensive lineman Benedict Umeh, who signed on as a member after meetings with CFBPA officials.
"Just like the NFLPA, we could have collective bargaining with these conferences and could have a collective bargaining agreement that would standardize the issues of controversy we're seeing around college football," Umeh said.
CFBPA leaders are in active conversations with players from at least three other schools and executives are confident in the announcement of more chapters in the coming weeks.
While not completely groundbreaking, the creation of the Stanford chapter is noteworthy in a time of upheaval in the college sports ecosystem as multiple players association leaders, college executives and even congressional lawmakers attempt to bring stability and regulation to an industry crippled by legal losses.
There is stark disagreement among stakeholders on the two primary routes — Congress or collective bargaining — to achieve stability in a sport rapidly transitioning into a more professional entity. Many believe that federal legislation should provide that regulation and have for years lobbied Congress for a bill — one that sits on the precipice of a vote in the U.S. Senate.
While complex and some believe impossible, collective bargaining continues to gain momentum even among high-level college sports stakeholders who are adamant that it can be done despite many hurdles, including the employment of public school college athletes, Southern state laws that prevent bargaining and, maybe most notably, the athletes themselves organizing.
Perhaps the latter is beginning to take shape during an era in which universities are now directly paying their athletes to play sports, many of them in excess of $40 million in annual roster spend at the power conference level.
Stahl's first chapter comes four years after he attempted a similar move at Penn State. However, that player gathering was not sanctioned or even known by university coaches and administrators. The effort backfired when a staff member walked into a team meeting of players discussing unionization.
Just 18 months later, athlete employment and unionization are viewed in a different light, even by some of the most high-profile coaches and officials across the country. Some Stanford administrators and staff members knew of Stahl's meetings as most of them were held within campus athletic buildings. University executives did not respond to a request for comment as of Sunday night.
"That was the wrong time, wrong team, wrong leaders," Stahl said of the Penn State situation. "College football wasn't ready for it in many ways. Guys weren't being paid directly from their schools as they are now. And so [it's a] leap to say, 'How do you have collective bargaining if guys aren't being paid by their employer?' We've now crossed that bridge."
The CFBPA is one of many entities organizing athletes in an effort to unionize.
Athletes.org, led by Brandon Copeland and Jim Cavale, have spent the last several years pitching players and administrators on collective bargaining models and have current membership totals exceeding 5,000. The National College Players Association, founded by Ramogi Huma, has worked to lobby state and congressional lawmakers for more friendly college athlete policy and has spearheaded the creation of dozens of state NIL laws to protect athlete rights.
The United College Athlete Association, started in 2024 by Andrew Cooper, has found a lane in organizing women's basketball players, some of whom have publicly espoused their desire for employment.
"I think it's time to come to the truth: We are employees," said Oluchi Okananwa, a Maryland women's hoops player from Boston, the Big Ten's Defensive Player of the Year last season and a UCAA member.
In a recorded podcast interview released to Yahoo Sports, Anderson, the Stanford player representative, wonders aloud how Monday's announcement will be viewed by executives of the college sports community.
"I'm signing up for it and have put my name out there," he said. "I don't know how it's going to be received by the rest of the college football landscape or the higher-ups in the government, but I'm willing to do it because it needs to be done by somebody."
Conference commissioners, NCAA leaders and university presidents for years have publicly condemned any employment or bargaining model, but many of their coaches, and even athletic directors, are gravitating toward the concept out of frustration with the current environment. In a way, some believe that bargaining may be to the benefit of the schools and conference, which for now find themselves in a rudderless environment of unlimited athlete movement, loose compensation restrictions and growing legal woes around athlete eligibility.
In a somewhat stunning move, SEC university presidents and athletic directors received a collective bargaining presentation during their annual spring meetings in May, though the concept was met with extreme pushback.
"There's a way to do it," Danny White, the Tennessee athletic director and one of the loudest proponents of a CBA, said in January. "We're way past time to roll up our sleeves and try to figure it out."
With their decision, Stanford players aren't "giving the bird to the NCAA saying 'F you!,'" said Anderson. "We think there can be a mutually beneficial way to do this thing moving forward."
Some agree with him, even one of the architects of the NCAA's House settlement, plaintiff attorney Jeffrey Kessler. The settlement ushered into college sports direct school revenue-sharing with players, and it allows for the creation of a bargaining structure as a way to provide athletes with "additional benefits" outside of the settlement.
Kessler is a proponent of the conference-level bargaining structure that the CFBPA is championing.
"One conference could say, 'We are going to recognize these athletes as employees,'" Kessler said. "The [House] settlement is crafted as a way to facilitate that. The settlement would become a baseline and there would be things added on. I actually think that's how it would be done — on a conference-by-conference basis. Then the question is, would it be done by sport? You could have a union for football in the SEC."
Meanwhile, a bill in the U.S. Senate stands to, in many ways, bargain on behalf of the athletes without much of their input, said Umeh. The Protect College Sports Act establishes a one-time transfer limit on athletes, five-year eligibility standard and a stricter compensation cap on athletes. Lawmakers are in the midst of refining and revising the bill in an attempt to gain support from the SEC and Big Ten and bring the bill to the floor for a vote, which would be a groundbreaking move.
"There's some legislation going on trying to standardize a lot of the stuff in college football and give us a legal standard. I have a couple issues with it," Umeh said. "College football players should have a voice on the future. They know what works best for them and their teams. I'm not saying college football should be run by the players, but I think the players should have more of a voice."
