This is a free online newsletter for Jason Stahl, Executive Director of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA). If you are a past, present or future college football player, I ask that you consider becoming a member of the CFBPA. For a short YouTube introduction on the CFBPA, click here. Members of the general public who would like to support the CFBPA can donate at this link or volunteer at this link.
A week and a half ago, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) regarding college sports. While the order garnered a lot of press attention, the reality is that it will likely amount to very little. EOs are not law as only Congress can pass federal legislation. Given this, the various aspects of the EO will be very hard to enforce. If you want more specifics on the EO and why it will likely amount to nothing, I recommend this piece from Michael McCann at Sportico or this piece from political scientist Kyle Saunders. If a more popular president had issued this EO, he might be able to spur actual legislative action, but Trump at this point in his presidency is very close to lame duck status and will very likely be ignored on this issue and others heading forward.
Another reason the president deserves to be ignored when it comes to the issue of college sports reform is that he, like so many in his generation, largely pines for the “good ol’ days” where everyone but the athletes who generated the revenue were paid. Trump was very clear on this fact when he held a White House roundtable to discuss college sports over a month ago. No actual current athletes were invited and throughout a meandering discussion Trump often wistfully imagined going back to the way things were. He made side comments about maybe being able to pay the athletes a little bit of money, but he kept returned to “how great things were” when only administrators and coaches were paid.
For those like Trump who harbor such attitudes, college athletes are “spoiled” and the idea that they need a players association or union is laughable. I’ve been seeing a lot of this attitude recently and so, for this and other reasons, I thought it was worth confronting it in a single newsletter. So, why despite the fact that college athletes are now being paid “revenue sharing” as independent contractors directly from their institutions and/or conferences, do they still need to actually be employees with collective bargaining rights? Why, alongside their union, do they also need a players association like the College Football Players Association?
As I’ve pointed out many times before at this newsletter, the CFBPA is a fraternity. There are all sorts of things we can do now, as a fraternity, to offer assistance and community to past, present and future college football players. We’ve helped current players find attorneys, including pro bono legal assistance. We’ve also helped many current players who are “in a (non-legal) jam” that they need help with. Finally, we’ve connected our former player Alumni Members as mentors to current players and done networking events for both.
We will continue to do all of this, and more, as a fraternal players association. However, as I’ve argued before, players will eventually need a union to engage in collective bargaining. Football is one of the most dangerous sports ever created by human beings. As such, and because college football is now a multi-billion dollar operation at the highest level of play, players will need the protections and benefits that only a unionization, collective bargaining and collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) will bring.
But what will players negotiate for when collective bargaining happens? Our CFBPA Platform for Change has always been our way of answering this question. It has been developed and re-developed over the past five years as the industry and the game continue to evolve. In the past month, we’ve gone through another such re-development which we’re unveiling today. Our refreshed 10-point Platform for Change is our attempt to outline exactly what players should be hoping to negotiate for during future collective bargaining at the highest level of the game. I’ll outline each plank and discuss why each is so important to reforming college football today:
Guaranteed access to independent medical care. I’ve written about this issue many times in the past and it is one of the key reasons I became an advocate for college football players nearly a decade ago. As our Vice President of Health and Safety Dr. Scott Lynch has shown, lack of independent care, free from coach interference, is a problem within college football which can only be remedied by a CBA and enforcement by a players association and/or a union. This has been our number one platform plank since we developed our Platform for Change at it will always continue to be the case.
Safer, healthier practice standards aligned with the NFL and Ivy League. Over forty college football players have now died in the twenty-first century playing the game. All but one of those deaths has happened in the largely unsupervised, lightly regulated practice environments that exist throughout the sport. For the aftereffects of one of the more recent player deaths, I urge you to listen to this recent podcast with Calvin and Nicole Dickey. The Dickeys lost their son CJ after he suffered rhabdomyolysis from a punishment workout at the hands of his strength and training coach on his first day of football practice in July 2024 as a freshman at Bucknell University. There have been no consequences for his death and the Dickeys are still seeking justice. Until college football practice environments are reformed through a CBA to make them safer like the NFL, these deaths will continue.
Long-term, post-football health protections. I have met many individuals still suffering from their playing days injuries. A CBA needs to negotiate adequately for their mental and physical long-term well being. With everything we now know about the long-term consequences of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) for many who play football, long-term health protections are more important than ever.
A meaningful, protected off-season. Simply put, college football is now a year-round endeavor with little-to-no offseason. Because of the CBA between the NFL and NFLPA, the off-season in the NFL is far more significant than college football. This should not be the case. College football needs a real off-season, locked in by a CBA for all, where players and coaches can have downtime. This needs to be locked in soon with college football now likely moving to an even more lengthy spring practice period.
Revenue sharing negotiated directly with players, including league minimums. As I’ve written about before, college football players at the highest level of play are now getting “revenue sharing checks” from their schools and/or conferences. This is a good and long overdue step forward. However, they are still being paid as 1099 independent contractors despite the fact that schools and/or conferences obviously exercise employee-like control over their work. A shift to the more rational employee-based framework would allow for the negotiation of a CBA which would establish player minimums, hirer average pay and higher top pay as exist in other sports leagues. Such a shift to employee status would also mean that the athletes themselves are not being brutalized come tax time by an employer who does not pay their fair share in taxation as is now the case.
Free agency and eligibility standards negotiated directly with players. There have been numerous lawsuits as of late challenging NCAA rules regarding free agency and eligibility. These lawsuits have obviously become too numerous and this “regulation by litigation” approach is not the best way to run a multi-billion college football enterprise. CBAs, negotiated between players and management, are the obvious sustainable and enforceable approach that is needed. Players will be protected from being told by their coach to “hit the transfer portal” and the industry will get rules and regulations around free agency and eligibility standards that are enforceable with a players association.
Length of season and any further playoff expansion negotiated directly with athletes. We are moving towards a world, at the highest level of college football, that will last as long as the NFL season. In the case of NFL football players, the expansion of games was always negotiated with the NFLPA for more player benefits in return. Such is not the case in college football even though it is needed and is needed now before College Football Playoff administrators expand the postseason once again without player consent.
Educational benefits negotiated directly with athletes. The educational benefits that high-level college football players (and many other college athletes) receive from their scholarship has always been suspect. As I’ve written about before from my own experience as university faculty, eligibility has been prioritized over an actual education in many instances. Since COVID and the rise of AI, the problem has gotten even worse. Many players only take vastly inferior online classes and use tutors and AI to do much of the work for those courses. In light of all of this, educational benefits need to be reimagined with players having more direct input into their educational benefits while they’re engaging in the full-time job of college football.
Nationwide, group NIL opportunities facilitated by a players union. Players are getting screwed right now in group NIL deals like the EA Sports college football video game. Until players allocate their group NIL rights to a players union, this will continue to be the case. Once players have an actual negotiator at the table in group deals for video games, jerseys, trading cards, etc. they will reap massive monetary benefits just like the pro sports unions. Flat payments and royalties will become the norm.
Union-led regulation and certification of individual player agents. There is a massive problem right now with bad so-called “street agents” exploiting college athletes. This ESPN story from last February did a good job laying out the problem. Until agent regulation and certification is written into a CBA, you will continue to have these problems. These problems don’t exist in the same way in the NFL because the NFLPA does the agent regulation and certification. It should be in the same in college football.
I hope with this new platform everyone can now see exactly why college football players need a players association and a union now. If you’re a past, present or future college football player who wants to help build both, I urge you to become a member of the CFBPA today.
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