Stanford football players have joined a campus chapter of the College Football Players Association, the first step toward collective bargaining and unionizing in college football.
The move is but the first step in a long journey. There was a unionization push at Northwestern a decade ago, which dissolved when the National Labor Relations Board declined to rule and the case was dropped. That was in 2015, in a pre-NIL world, and a unionization push has much more teeth when players are sharing revenue with their universities while also participating in the open market.
The CFPA hopes to open enough chapters that it can then collectively bargain on a conference-by-conference basis.
“We are very optimistic that other chapters will be announced soon,” CFPA founder Jason Stahl told The Athletic.
The timeline is presently unclear, and exemplifies the challenge of forming a collectively bargaining unit with college athletes. "I'm not sure on a timeline," Stanford center Fisher Anderson told ESPN. "But my personal opinion is that it's inevitable more so than possible. It needs to happen. The question is when."
Professional careers regularly last a decade or longer, while in college football a career lasts (in theory) more than five years.
However, this push comes at a time when many coaches have asked for the ability to collectively bargain with their athletes. Just as in pro sports, a CBA in college football would likely make it more difficult for coaches to "cut" players and raise the salaries of lower- and middle-tier earning players, it would also make it more difficult for players to leave, as well.
The ability of players to hit free agency after every single season would be over in a legally-durable way, whereas now the NCAA's rules are subject to frequent legal challenges. Schools and conferences would also likely negotiate rules preventing 24-year-old players who signed professional contracts from returning to the college game, too. It also could be the only viable option if and when the Protect College Sports Act dies on Capitol Hill, which could happen soon.
Then again, there are also a number of coaches and ADs who say recognizing players as employees would create a new set of legal challenges, too.
Stanford players told ESPN that general manager Andrew Luck and head coach Tavita Pritchard are aware of the newly-formed CFPA chapter and did not express support or disapproval. The CFPA also declined to disclose the number of Cardinal players who joined.