Stanford football players have formed the first chapter of the College Football Players Association led by active athletes, the CFBPA announced Monday, an initial step toward creating a body that could develop into a collective bargaining unit.<\/p>\n
An initial step, but with a long way to go.<\/p>\n
Though collective bargaining with athletes is an idea that has gained traction within major college sports as it becomes more professionalized \u2014 SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last week he was open-minded to the concept<\/a> \u2014 there is no real framework to do so and no clear answer to the key question: With whom will the athletes bargain?<\/p>\n CFPBA founder and executive director Jason Stahl, a former faculty member at the University of Minnesota, believes the answer eventually should be the conferences.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very optimistic that other chapters will be announced soon,\u201d Stahl told The Athletic.<\/p>\n The CFBPA was founded five years ago as an athlete advocacy group, with a goal of organizing players at the major college level.<\/p>\n Stanford athletes have been communicating with Stahl for more than a year.<\/p>\n The CFBPA declined to provide an exact number of players who officially joined the chapter, but in late June, Stahl held a voluntary informational meeting with Stanford players at the school\u2019s Palo Alto, Calif., campus that was attended by more than 50 members of the team.<\/p>\n Fifth-year offensive lineman Fisher Anderson and fifth-year linebacker Ernest Cooper were elected as player representatives by their teammates.<\/p>\n \u201cWe (at Stanford) have always had a pretty tight relationship with the NFL Players Association,\u201d Anderson said on a podcast produced by the CFBPA. \u201cLast year when this opportunity came about, it made me think if this is something that has had such a benefit on the National Football League, could it be done on the college football level?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever I leave those meetings (with the NFLPA) I think, \u2018Why don\u2019t we have one of those?\u2019\u201d Stanford third-year defensive lineman Benedict Umeh told The Athletic.<\/p>\n