Why is it stupid? Colleges are making huge sums of money off of 18-22 year olds, and the players are getting basically nothing out of the deal. Other than busted up bodies. What exactly do the players have to lose?
Only the D1 power conferences have quantities of money flowing around, due to booster clubs and sponsors. The mid-majors and smaller schools have far more modest athletic budgets, and have to scrape to survive.
College athletics is not some infinitely deep pool of money available for unions to gobble like hungry hogs.