Stanford Football Players Form First Player-Led Campus Chapter Of The College Football Players Association

On July 27, the College Football Players Association (CFBPA) announced that Stanford football players had established the first campus chapter of the organization, led by current athletes.  Offensive lineman Fisher Anderson and linebacker Ernest Cooper, both fifth-year players, were elected as the chapter’s representatives. Prior unionization attempts by college athletes have failed, notably those undertaken by members of the Northwestern football team in 2014 and by the Dartmouth men’s basketball team in 2024. However, unlike these previous efforts, which relied on national advocacy groups to speak on behalf of athletes, the Stanford chapter of the CFBPA is an active, player-run organization.

Founded in 2021 by Jason Stahl, a labor organizer and former University of Minnesota professor, the CFPBA seeks to create the institutional infrastructure for future collective bargaining in college football. Specifically, the CFPBA envisions a bargaining model that bypasses NCAA member institutions in favor of direct negotiations between players and athletic conferences — in Stanford’s case, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

In contrast to professional organizations, like the NFL Players Association, the CFPBA is not a certified labor union and does not have formal collective bargaining rights. Separately, while professional athletes are employees of their respective teams under established labor law, the employment status of college athletes remains uncertain. Indeed, the NCAA has consistently opposed the treatment of college athletes as employees, though that issue has been taken up by Congress and is currently the subject of litigation in a case pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania under the caption Johnson v. NCAA.

Cognizant of these challenges, the CFPBA has identified conferences as the primary decision-makers on many issues affecting student-athletes, such as revenue-sharing, scheduling, roster management, player benefits and health and safety standards. Consequently, the establishment of the Stanford chapter represents a significant step in a conference-wide effort to organize athletes to negotiate with ACC leadership on these issues rather than pursuing negotiations with individual schools.

Whether the establishment of the Stanford chapter of the CFBPA represents a watershed moment or simply another abortive effort to organize remains to be seen. From a legal and compliance perspective, the Stanford announcement does not implicate any immediate changes to the existing revenue-sharing model set out in the approved House settlement agreement or other NCAA rules governing NIL or athlete eligibility. Meaningful negotiating leverage is inextricably linked with the buy-in from athletes at other ACC schools. Yet, with proposed NIL legislation stalled in both the Senate and the House, this development does raise important questions about the viability of the prevailing regime and the potential evolution of a governance apparatus in which athletes have an organized voice in negotiating the terms of compensation, benefits, and participation, even if the CFBPA does not enjoy the status under labor law as the bargaining representative for these student athletes.

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