Penn State QB Sean Clifford, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren discuss improving benefits

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5:02 PM ET

Football players in the Big Ten have had conversations with the league's commissioner about improving benefits for players and giving athletes a bigger voice in the future. Warren talked to the leader of the players association about the possibility of an independent group representing the players in conversations with the league.

The conversations with Warren this week have been positive and will give players a seat at the table in the future. He said that he and the other players have no intention of forming a union at this time.

The Big Ten commissioner spoke with players and with the head of the College Football Players Association. They formed a plan to organize players in the Big Ten to ask for better medical care and a share of future revenue.

After their college careers have come to an end, standardized medical care for players has been the focus of discussions with Warren. Warren and leaders at Penn State have been receptive to the initial conversations about how to make improvements for players.

"It's been a bunch of people coming together," he said. People want players to have more of a voice.

Warren talked to Stahl about a few topics the Big Ten wants to negotiate with.

• A representative on each campus who can advocate for players during medical situations or other disputes. The representative would be hired by the CFBPA and serve an on-site role similar to the player representatives in professional sports unions; • Funds from the conference to purchase medical insurance policies for former players that would cover the treatment of injuries from their college football careers;

• A to-be-determined percentage of media rights revenue for players.

A representative from the Big Ten said that their conversation with Warren was not the start of a collective bargaining discussion.

Warren said that the Big Ten Conference communicated and collaborated with their student-athletes. A student-athletes advisory committee is in the process of being formed. We work with our member institutions to make sure our student-athletes have an outstanding and well-rounded experience, while promoting and protecting the mission of higher education.

The conversations that players have with the Big Ten have been positive, so it's not yet time to have a discussion about what players will do if the Big Ten isn't willing to change.

"We want to have a discussion that we've never had before," he stated. The three things are what we want to do. We think there is more to come. A lot of changes will be made in the future. The work force should have a say in the matter.

The two men first met in June. More than half of the Penn State football team has signed up to be dues-paying members of the budding players' association, according to Stahl. He wants Penn State's players to serve as the first chapter of a nationwide association, but the bargaining efforts are focused on the Big Ten.

If the Big Ten doesn't make significant progress on doing more for players, he believes the organization's next step is to register as a labor organization and possibly become a union.

The Big Ten is on the verge of an unprecedented windfall thanks to an upcoming media rights deal that experts believe could be worth more than $1 billion. The recent announcement that USC and UCLA will join the Big Ten is likely to help those figures.

The players' case to be treated as a workforce should be strengthened by the decision of the two LA-based schools.

To register as a labor organization, members would have to vote to form a union and have their request confirmed by the National Labor Relations Board, which could take many months. The National Labor Relations Board declined to rule on the case of the football players trying to unionize. The Big Ten is a private business and the players are employed by it.

The National Labor Relations Board is looking at two complaints that argue that the NCAA should be treated as an employer of college athletes. The NCAA's stance that athletes are not employees was challenged by the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. The NCAA is being sued for trying to argue that players should be considered employees of their school.

He spent the last month trying to learn as much as he could about the unionization effort. The college sports landscape and public perception have changed over the past eight years, according to him.

"I think this has been going on for a while now, and I think it's going to happen soon," he said. It's not as crazy as it was in the past. The players have rights to their names, images and likeness. It's about having a seat at the table with the billion-dollar deals and talking about what we can do here.

On Friday, he emphasized that his conversations with Big Ten leadership have left him optimistic that he can be part of a group of players that creates significant change.