How much money would college football players get paid if California's proposed new law was national?
How much money would college football players get paid if California's proposed new law was national?
The Oklahoma Sooners top the list at almost $550,000 per year, per player
The table above uses data from the U.S. Department of Education’s EADA database on college athletics spending (in 2020) to estimate how much each football player at each of these FBS schools would receive if legislation currently proposed in California were to be implemented nationally. According to J. Brady McCollough writing at the Los Angeles Times, “The amount owed to each athlete would be the half of the sport’s total revenue minus the team’s total student grant-in-aid package divided by the number of players.” In the table above I simply assumed $50,000 per year, per player for grant-in-aid.
Football players at 26 universities would earn more than $200,000 each per year and 56 would earn more than $100,000 annually. In total football players would receive income at over 100 universities. According to McCollough, the earnings would be tied to graduation:
Schools would establish a degree completion fund for each athlete, and the contents of the fund — fed annually — would be made available soon after degree completion (within six years). If the athlete does not graduate within six years, he or she will forfeit the fund and it will go back into the athletic budget. Players would have immediate access to a maximum of $25,000 each year, while the rest would build over time.
At Oklahoma, for instance, a football player graduating after 5 years would receive a windfall of about $2.7 million. That is serious money and it highlights the degree to which athletes in big-time college programs have been exploited for generations. As McCollough observes:
There’s a compelling argument that the amateur model — particularly in the last two decades as television revenues have exploded — has led to a displacement of what could have been generational wealth for young Black athletes and their families.
Below are the next 25 colleges in the table.
Since your table is for illustrative purposes only, my comment may seem offbase. You used 2020 football revenues. The pandemic year. Where the SEC played a full season, the Big Ten a slightly abbreviated one, and the the Pac 12 essentially a half season. Attendance at games was limited by Covid rules that varied widely between conferences. So the football revenues for 2020 are not reflective of actual revenues. But an accurate table like yours could be used by recruiters to literally buy recruits, turning my favorite sport into a replay of Steinbrenner's Yankees in their heyday. A second thought, given human nature. Does anyone believe the star players would be satisfied with an equal split?
My understanding is that there are a lot of other college athletes that are subsidized by the big two of football and basketball. Track and Field, Swimming, Tennis, Golf, Softball, Soccer, Volleyball ( these last 3 often for women only in order to balance scholarships to comply with Title IX) would all suffer if the money went to the football players. The college programs for some of these sports are the primary developer of Olympic team members. While I understand where this is coming from in terms of fairness, I think there would be some serious implications if this was implemented.