Stanford University’s football players have taken a big step forward toward unionizing and gaining collective bargaining, the players announced on Monday.
A group of players has formally established the school’s first chapter of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA), a major step toward unionizing, according to Yahoo Sports.
Even as the CFBPA has been around for five years, Stanford becomes the first school to meet the required number of students enrolled in the group to become certified and to elect representatives.
“The time is now to do something,” said offensive lineman Fisher Anderson. “This is college football, and it’s increasingly becoming more like the NFL. At some point, we’re likely going to need a CFBPA.”
Anderson added that he hopes players at other schools will now rise and start their own chapters so “we can ride the wave together.”
CFBPA executive director Jason Stahl added that he is confident that Stanford will act as an example for other schools to raise their own union chapters to force the leagues to “voluntarily recognize that bargaining unit.”
Stahl also said his ultimate goal is to create a nationwide player’s union.
“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,” said Stanford defensive lineman Benedict Umeh.
Stahl, who tried but failed to unionize his fellow players at Penn State in 2022, noted that the group is in talks with students in three other colleges.
The former Penn State player also pointed out that with colleges now beginning to pay players directly thanks to NIL deals, now is the time for unionization.
“College football wasn’t ready for it in many ways,” he said of his failed attempts four years ago. “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.”
CFBPA is not the only organization racing to become the first to unionize college athletes. Brandon Copeland and Jim Cavale organized Athletes.org, which claims to have 5,000 members. The National College Players Association, founded by Ramogi Huma, is currently lobbying lawmakers on NIL topics. And the United College Athlete Association, started in 2024 by Andrew Cooper, is attempting to organize women’s basketball players.
Many — among both players and college officials — feel unionization might lead to a fix for the messy NIL situation now so pervasive in college sports. With so many schools striking out in different directions and numerous politicians chiming in for good or ill, the NIL sphere is complicated and uneven, and many are frustrated with the whole thing.
But unions tend to make everything more expensive, sluggish, and unresponsive to change. Schools could get more than they bargained for if they allow students to unionize.
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