Before Dartmouth's Union Vote, Penn State Football Started a Conversation
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The Dartmouth men's basketball team accelerated college athletics' future Tuesday, overwhelmingly ratifying a plan to unionize. The team voted 13-2 to join the Service International Employees Union Local 560, the group announced. It marked the first time athletes have unionized in college sports history.
The ramifications are enormous for athletes, colleges and conferences — and the lawyers who represent them. How, and how much, college athletes get paid promises to escalate as a legal battleground. And it's one that has immediate roots in Penn State football.
In 2022, members of the Penn State football team met with the head of the College Football Players Association about starting a chapter and potentially unionizing. No official vote was taken, but that day made the Nittany Lions part of a larger conversation that took a huge step forward at Dartmouth. Here's what happened at Penn State.
Penn State football players held a players-only meeting in July 2022 with the head of the College Football Players Association that included references to unionizing, according to the CFBPA's executive director. According to Jason Stahl, executive director of the College Football Players Association, Penn State players met secretly with Stahl about CFBPA initiatives. Those included ideas for Big Ten revenue sharing and expanding access to medical care and insurance. Stahl also referenced potentially organizing a chapter of the CFBPA at Penn State.
Stahl wrote in his Substack newsletter that former Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford helped schedule the meeting, at which Stahl presented a list of demands they would take to the Big Ten Conference. The list included players receiving a share of Big Ten media rights revenue.
Stahl told CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd that his presentation also included an option for unionizing.
"I first spoke with the leaders on the team in small groups and individually and then to the entire team," Stahl wrote in his newsletter. "All were excited to lead the first public campaign for the CFBPA."
However, Stahl continued, a Penn State staff member happened upon the meeting, which led to it becoming known among Big Ten coaches and administrators. Stahl then wrote that the Big Ten began a "campaign to turn our star player against the players association" that included inviting Clifford to join a Big Ten players committee.
Clifford later posted a statement to Twitter that called any union discussions "inaccurate." Clifford added that he and fellow players are "working at the campus and conference level to address the complexities of college athletics for student-athletes."
In his newsletter, Stahl called the statement "disheartening," adding that "our first CFBPA leader had now been flipped." Stahl concluded that he is "looking for a different type of player leader," suggesting that the relationship between the CFBPA and Clifford had ended.
At the 2022 Big Ten Media Days, former Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren introduced plans to amplify its Student-Athlete and Advisory Committee quickly. Players, including Clifford, met with Warren about joining that committee as the Big Ten negotiates its new media rights deal.
Warren said that he wants to be a "bold leader as we work through what's right for our student-athletes."
"I want to hear it from [the athletes]," Warren said. "I want to be a great listener to figure out what is important to them. It's so easy to talk about money and share money, but what does that really mean? I want to make sure that I listen and learn to be able to have big ears and a small mouth to truly understand what's important to them."
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