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.
We are in a new moment of the business of college athletics. As I’ve discussed before at this newsletter, there has been an ongoing battle over the past couple of years in a cluster of antitrust class-action lawsuits in the state of California. These cases have now reached a settlement which has recently been approved by the judge in the case. While not perfect, the settlement will bring new benefits to former and current college athletes, especially college football players. For a full view of the settlement, I urge you to read this piece by Michael McCann at Sportico.
In short, though, the settlement will provide two big benefits. First, it affords back damages to former athletes for the NCAA’s denial of the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) in the past. Second, it allows for revenue sharing with current and future college athletes for their NIL directly from the schools themselves. The former is now subject to appeal and so we shall see what comes of this portion of the settlement. However, the latter portion of the settlement now stands which means that come July 1, schools for the first time will begin revenue sharing with college athletes directly. This is a momentous step forward and creates a truly new moment for college athletics—one which begins to recognize the labor of athletes who generate the wealth on which the whole system is based.
However, while we are most definitely entering a new moment in the business of college athletics—one which furthers the last five-year trajectory of college athlete empowerment—there are still new steps forward to take and new battles ahead. As I said in a previous newsletter, these next steps will be less about revenue sharing (now that this bridge has been crossed) and more about power sharing with athletes. The NCAA, the conferences and the schools have now shown that they are willing to share revenue with athletes, but it remains to be seen whether they are now willing to take the next step and share power with athletes collectively by engaging in collective bargaining.
Collective bargaining, especially with college football players, has the potential to bring sustainability to college athletics in a way that no lawsuits can. Additionally, collective bargaining will bring new much needed health and safety protections for players which these lawsuits and others are simply not concerned with. However, to make collective bargaining possible two things need to happen. First, players, especially college football players, need to get organized. This is obviously a big part of our mission at the College Football Players Association. Secondly, the administrators, coaches and other decision makers of college athletics will need to be open to seeing college athletes as equals and engage in power sharing with them. To do so, they will need to give up their long-standing ideas about these athletes being “kids” as opposed to the essential workers who make the whole system go. It remains to be seen if those in power can do this.
For our part, here at the CFBPA we’ll continue to focus on getting college football players organized and point them towards a future of power sharing and collective bargaining. To that end, throughout this summer we’ll continue to organize football players around the country and work to convince them that we are the players association that they should choose as their form of collective representation. We’ll be talking to athletes in person, forging new partnerships, announcing new leadership and securing new resources to show them that we are ready for the road ahead.
In that light, today we have several new announcements regarding changes in leadership and new resources. First, we have a couple of changes in our governing Board of Directors. We are unfortunately losing two fine Board members: Tom Dieters and one of our Vice Presidents, Maddie Salamone. Tom is stepping away because of a lack of time and Maddie because of a new job appointment that she wants to focus on. We will miss them both.
I’d like to say a particular note of thanks to Maddie for the role she played as our Vice President for nearly three years. Her counsel and friendship were absolutely invaluable to me through the many ups and downs of running a new organization dedicated to true athlete advocacy. Her September 2023 Sportico op-ed on the subject of true athlete advocacy and the sacrifices it entails was one of the highlights of her time at CFBPA and I urge you to check it out if you haven’t. Additionally, her Congressional testimony around that same time showed exactly why she is different than many of the “entrepreneurial athlete advocates” that she criticized in her Sportico piece. Maddie was never in this for the money and this is exactly why she was so great at the work—it came from her heart and from the downsides she experienced as a college athlete herself. She will be sorely missed and I hope our work lives intersect again in the future. However, even if they don’t, I’m fortunate to still call her my friend.
Stepping in for Maddie and Tom are two fantastic new board members. First, we welcome Dr. Scott Lynch to the board as our new Vice President of Health and Safety. I’ve discussed Dr. Lynch many times in this newsletter. I also did a podcast interview with him late last year which I urge you to watch if you haven’t. For those who don’t know, this past summer Dr. Lynch, the former head doctor for the Penn State football team, won a jury trial in Pennsylvania against his employer Penn State Health. The jury awarded Dr. Lynch $5.25 million finding that he had been fired “in retaliation for complaining about head football coach James Franklin interfering with medical treatment and return-to-play decisions.” The suit also alleges that former Athletic Director Sandy Barbour acted as an enabler for Coach Franklin in these actions and in hiring medical staff which would be more easily influenced by the football coaching staff.
Penn State Health dropped their appeal of the verdict and so Dr. Lynch has received his jury award and is now retiring from his work as an orthopedic surgeon. He and his wife Deb Lynch have generously contributed to the CFBPA from this jury award and we greatly thank them for this gift. Getting to know Scott and Deb over the past year has been fantastic and I am heartened that they see us as the players association who will carry out their mission of protecting college athletes. In Scott’s new role as Vice President of Health and Safety, he will be responsible for helping us implement new health and safety measures aimed at protecting college athletes. Such measures may come through collective bargaining or through voluntary steps by programs themselves. We’re honored to have Dr. Lynch on our board.
Finally, we welcome Harin Contractor to our board. Harin is the former Director of Labor Policy for the National Economic Council at the White House under former President Joe Biden. Harin was the lead White House staffer that brought together former notable college and professional football players to discuss issues related to inequities in college football as it related to health, safety, and compensation. We were honored to be a part of that event. Harin has nearly 20 years of experience across public policy, government, non-profit, and labor roles. We’re excited to have him on board.
As always, we hope these new announcements — and many more to come this summer — will lead past, present and future college football players to trust us to represent them now and in a future which includes collective bargaining. If you are one of these players, I urge you to become a member today.