This is a free online newsletter for Jason Stahl, Executive Director of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA). If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter, you can do so here. If you’d like to financially support our efforts you can do that here.
Almost exactly one year ago, I was toiling away at this newsletter fleshing out why a College Football Players Association (CFBPA) was needed. College football players had first advocated for a CFBPA in the summer of 2020 and during that summer very clearly stated their reasons for why such a new institution was needed. However, what I attempted to do one year ago in my newsletter was something a bit different. In that post, I argued that the broad college sports reform movement had a problem—namely, that it was a movement driven by elites but without organized grass roots. In other words, we had mostly well-meaning academics, lawyers, nonprofits and legislators but no organized, sustained, institutionalized movement of college athletes themselves. To create a movement capable of big reforms in the world of college athletics, the latter would be needed as much as the former and, for this reason, we needed a CFBPA.
One year later, and not quite five months into the formal founding of the CFBPA, we are on our way to building just such a movement. I wanted to write this newsletter, the last of 2021, to give updates regarding our progress in our first five months and where we are heading in 2022.
2021 Recap: Outreach and Building the CFBPA One Player at a Time
We’re very happy with the media coverage we’ve received in 2021 and you can check it all out at the CFBPA media page. This coverage has allowed us to start making connections with current and former college football players and then having some of those players sign up as members. This is a time-consuming project involving one-on-one conversations with interested individuals who then have to make an individual decision to become a dues-paying member. For a high school football player we charge $12 a year; for a current college football player we charge $24 a year; and for a former (alumni) college football player we charge $50 a year. So, the decision for an individual to sign up as a member—and then to work at signing up others—means that they are quite literally bought into the institution. However, we think that this sometimes arduous process is the best in that it ensures a committed membership—exactly the type which will be necessary to enact our vision and not simply be a players association in name only.
2022 Resolutions: Membership Growth; Leadership Committee Development; and Chapter Development
With bowl season currently ongoing, we’ll soon be at the point where current college football players will have much more off-season free time. At that point, the possibilities of having meaningful in-person conversations with individuals and teams increases significantly. What this means is that 2022 will likely be a year of significant membership growth for us. This growth will occur at the individual level but will also likely involve growth at the team level. In 2022 we will undoubtedly be ready to establish our first chapter or chapters. What this means is that a whole team has signed up to be dues-paying members of the CFBPA thus allowing us to formally establish a chapter at a school. This individual and chapter growth in membership will allow us to start fully implementing the CFBPA vision and to start finding out how, exactly, membership wants to use their institution collectively. With hundreds, if not thousands of dues-paying members, we will finally find out what players want (and don’t want) when it comes to changes in their sport.
Additionally, as we build our membership, player leadership of the movement will emerge. Our first effort to harness this leadership will come in the form of our Leadership Committee which will consist of current and recent former players who will work at developing the first CFBPA platform. We will announce the full Leadership Committee in 2022. Our first Leadership Committee member, former Clemson Center Justin Falcinelli, appeared recently on Gabe Feldman’s “Between the Lines” Podcast with me and CFBPA Advisory Board members Michael Hsu and Corey Staniscia. We all talked about where the CFBPA is heading in 2022 and I thought Justin did a great job talking about where he, personally, wants to see the CFBPA head in the future. Give it a listen if you have a chance.
I hope you all have a great holiday season and I can’t wait to see what 2022 brings!