EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsStanford football players have formed a campus chapter of the College Football Players Association, making the Cardinal the first team to partner with the organization, which aims to eventually unionize college athletes.The players are not yet petitioning to form a union or be deemed employees, but their announcement Monday marks a first step toward building a structure for college athletes to collectively bargain like professional athletes, a once-verboten idea that has gained popularity in recent years as high-level college sports become more professionalized.The CFBPA hopes to establish bargaining units on a conference-by-conference basis, according to Stanford chapter leaders Fisher Anderson and Ernest Cooper, who play center and linebacker, respectively, for the Cardinal. If and when the organization has signed up the majority of players at every school in a conference, it plans to take steps to formally unionize. Anderson and Cooper told ESPN it could be years before the players are able to bargain with ACC officials, but they believe their decision will encourage other teams to join."I'm not sure on a timeline," Anderson said. "But my personal opinion is that it's inevitable more so than possible. It needs to happen. The question is when."Several other programs in the ACC and other power conferences are on the cusp of forming their own chapters, according to CFBPA executive director Jason Stahl. He declined to say which schools, or how many players from each team need to join the association before they elect leaders and form a chapter.Collective bargaining is one of two main pathways that college sports leaders say could provide legal stability amid the steady flow of lawsuits that have shaped their industry for the last several years. The other path is asking Congress for a new federal law that grants the NCAA an antitrust exemption to be able to enforce rules such as a salary cap and transfer restrictions.A growing number of coaches and athletic directors have expressed interest in negotiating with players despite some significant obstacles to creating a collective bargaining system. In some states, public university employees are not allowed to unionize because they work for the government. Stahl and other union advocates say players can solve that problem by bargaining and signing deals with their conference rather than with their school.Many of the college sports officials who oppose collective bargaining say turning players into employees would create problems for both schools and athletes. NCAA leaders have said in interviews and during Congressional hearings that college athletes aren't interested in being employees.Cooper said he already thinks of himself and his teammates as employees."As a Power 4 college football player you're working out year round, you're getting paid," he said. "I don't see why people wouldn't see us as employees."The biggest hurdle to creating a union for college athletes, though, has been the difficult task of organizing a transient group of busy, young adults to form a player-led association. Stahl founded the CFBPA in July 2021, weeks after college players started making money from name, image and likeness deals, and has been working to build interest in locker rooms for the last five years. The only other organizer to announce something similar to a team chapter to date is a group called Athletes.org, which signed up the full UAB roster in 2024. A pair of efforts to unionize athletes at Dartmouth and at Southern California fizzled in 2025 after the Trump administration installed a more conservative National Labor Relations Board, the agency that regulates unions.Cooper, a redshirt senior at Stanford, said he first started discussing the idea of a players' association with Stahl more than a year ago. He said the biggest obstacle to getting players to join the group has been building trust in an age when college athletes are vulnerable to people trying to take advantage of them.He and Anderson participate in calls with players from other schools to encourage them to create their own team chapters."A lot of guys want to dip their toe in, but they're scared of retaliation from a coach or someone above them," Cooper said.The Stanford players said head coach Tavita Pritchard and general manager Andrew Luck are aware of their decision and did not express an opinion for or against it. A spokesman for the Stanford football team declined to comment."I've had open conversations with all of our top level administration about it," Anderson said. "I love this university, and I think the presence of a players' association only enhances what we're doing."He said he would eventually like for ACC football players to negotiate items such as safety standards, practice time and mental health benefits along with league-minimum salaries and a salary cap. The current system does have something akin to a salary cap, which allows schools to spend up to $21 million in the coming season on direct payments to their athletes, but many of the richest programs have built football payrolls that more than double the cap by arranging third-party NIL payments for their players.A union's ultimate negotiating power comes from its willingness to strike. Anderson said he wasn't sure if college football players would be able to sustain a work stoppage if needed."To be honest, I don't know," he said. "I think it would depend on what sort of funding we have in reserve. I'm pretty sure that's how the NFLPA operates, because obviously if they did go on strike, they would need to be able to pay their players. That's probably a conversation for a later date."The players who have signed up for the CFBPA do not currently pay any dues.Many college sports officials, including ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, say they prefer to create rules via federal law. Several NCAA and power conference leaders spent time on Capitol Hill in the past week urging politicians to vote for a proposed bill that addresses many of college sports' current issues. However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said it's unlikely that the bill will move to a full vote this summer. Several other attempts to address the NCAA's issues on Capitol Hill have failed to reach a full vote in either chamber of Congress.Cooper said he prefers a players' association because the current attempts at legislation don't include the athletes' perspective."You're talking about governing a group of people that aren't in the conversation," he said. "If that's going to happen there needs to be someone who can speak for the athletes."
