Football players at Stanford have organized a chapter with the College Football Players Association, which could be a significant first step toward athletes in the NCAA’s most lucrative sport unionizing in the future.
Others have tried, of course, and the CFBPA is not attempting to form a union at Stanford at the moment. But five years after the labor group launched, this is its first chapter led by active players, and it described the infrastructure as providing the “firm foundation for unionization and collective bargaining.” The CFBPA is hopeful the announcement Monday leads to similar organizing at other Division I football programs.
That could happen in the near future, according to Jason Stahl, the CFBPA’s executive director. The broader goal here is to give football players a real say in the decisions shaping the name, image and likeness (NIL) era of college sports. And the timing is certainly interesting, too, as a handful of U.S. senators keep pushing the Protect College Sports Act, a bill supported by the NCAA and many conferences but generally loathed by labor groups.