Disney pays $300 million a year for SEC football. I'm sorry, but at that price tag, the players deserve a cut of that just as much as NFL players do.

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The cut should be collectively bargained.

How many college football players get a salary greater than an NFL practice squad salary?

At some point is the NFL going to say fuck the NCAA, the SEC, and the Big 10, and let's just form our own U23 pro league that plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays? It could be an affiliate structure like the G League and AAA baseball, or it could just be its own league of 16 teams that serves as a massive league-wide practice squad.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Why and who?

The money has more to do with the logos than the people. Does Bo Nix have a value at Auburn that he doesn’t have at Oregon? Should coaches get a cut?

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I've never heard anyone say college football coaches are underpaid.

I'd buy your argument if there weren't that much money changing hands. $75 million a year for the intellectual property that drapes over 20-year-olds competitively headbutting each other, okay, maybe. But $3 billion with a B over ten years, no, that has to pass a point at which the labor becomes part of the product. At that level, you are paying for talent.

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Coaches are not underpaid, though I don’t know what that word means in the context of what we’re talking about here.

I’ve always thought players are fairly compensated for what they do in college. Getting into the school and getting access to the network doesn’t have a price tag but is extremely valuable. I saw some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met walk into investment banking jobs on the strength of having played a solid corner in college.

If they’re pure labor, then you’re not participating in the upside of that without the downside.

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Well, I'm sure they're already benefiting from the financial windfall of the TV deals. Some of that money coming in from the networks surely contributes to their budget. It's not all booster money.

I don't know. I always felt the fairest way to do this was to treat players at the BCS level (or whatever it is now) as employees of the university and pay them relative to what they bring in. From there, they can attend the school or not attend the school, but the charade of the noble "student-athlete" should be dropped at the highest levels of the revenue sports. But I know that's never really going to happen. The system is too entrenched and everyone is too used to it to imagine any other way. You still get dum-dums, not as many as you used to but some, who earnestly argue "but they are getting paid with the most important thing of all: an education." I never got into college sports anyway; it's just never been a passion of mine or my family's, so it's all a road game for me. My inherent sense of fairness just says to pay the players who justify the big TV deals.

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Unless college football eliminates the eligibility cap, I don't see how paying college football players would push up NFL salaries. They would only be in competition with each other for the same players for a few years. Also, the NFL has no incentive to develop a minor league system when the colleges are effectively providing them one for free.

In terms of the employee v. student athlete debate, it is a ridiculous veneer, but it is also a necessary one. Watching one group of university employees battle another group of university employees does not give you the same emotional pull as deluding yourself into thinking that you're watching student athletes.

Blake Corum said he returned to Michigan for his senior year because he was making more money at Michigan than he would in the NFL.

It would probably work about as well as the G-League works, i.e., loses money hand-over-fist and plays mostly untelevised games in front of friends and family and venue custodial staff.

The irrational emotional attachment people have for their alma mater + the even crazier enthusiasm of people who didn't even go to college, let alone Notre Dame, have for Irish football or any other collegiate football program is virtually impossible for the NFL to replicate with a minor league system of geographically-connected-only professional teams.

Based on the numbers thrown around in Sluka's case, at most 3%? max of currently rostered college football players match or exceed the average practice squad salary of $875,000 a year--annualized basis, they only get paid weekly during camp/season, so approx $16,800 * 24 weeks or ~$400k frfr.

I doubt it's even that many college players exceeding practice squad comp. 3% estimate is 2x the number of NFL draftees (approx 250 (256 max? Tho I think there were 257 this last draft) x 2 = 500) =>

500 / 16080 FBS roster spots => 3.1%

of FBS players matriculate to the NFL each year (at most).

I guess I could've looked up the NIL valuations before trying to guesstimate,

Top 100 NIL college football valuations

I think those are market estimates and not actual comp.

List cuts off at 100th ranked NIL value player @ $577k per year.

If you take the annualized practice squad number of $875k, it's 40 players.

The actual comp for the time NFL practice squad players are on the team makes more sense; so maybe you get down to $400K of NIL a season by player 125? or about half the number in an NFL draft class.


Sounds like the baseline for NIL comp is a monthly stipend of $3,000 for game-day roster players at BYU. At least that's what Sluka's brother said his brother Sluka Doncic gets. Sluka was promised somewhere between $85-$100k on top of the monthly stipend(?), that part wasn't clear. But I would assume that's above the regular game-day roster stipend.


Estimates peg Sluka's actual NIL value as QB1 at UNLV would be between $40-$50K, has to be on top of the stipend. So Sluka was promised 2x the going rate based on position + school. It was a verbal thing tied to whether Sluka won the starting job. They can't memorialize the QB1 condition in writing; so Sluka had to take UNLV's word that he'd get the extra for being the starter.

Seeing as there are virtually zero rules for NIL (other than ambient rules of contract law), I imagine players who play well and if the team is winning alumni boosters or whomever drop extra cash or cars or IG thot$ on the players during the season, but who knows.

Sluka didn't get his promised $100K; and seeing as this is his final season of NIL/college eligibility, he did the right thing walking away before he burnt his final year of eligibility. Now he can try again somewhere else (or even back at UNLV) next season. And in the meantime maybe he can practice up and get his completion rate north of 50%.

I wouldn’t say he did the right thing at all.

Thank you for doing the research I was too lazy to do.

I still think that if you transfer and then non-medically redshirt, then you should be allowed to save your eligiblity year only if you don't transfer again. If you are at your original school and non-medically redshirt, you should be allowed to keep your eligibility year even if you transfer.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Why do teams recruit good players if the logo is more important than the people? Just post a sheet on campus first day kids are back and invite students to try out for the team. They can wear the logo just as well as some 5 star recruit.

Why do good players flock to good logos? Just go anywhere and surely they’ll do as well as they could have at Alabama or Ohio State.

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Same reason that teams recruit them. Winning and success pays. Nobody gives a shit what logo you wear if you are 4-7. You’ll have a 55% full stadium and nobody will be giving you shit for money.

That’s obviously not true.

You think football schools stop giving a shit when they have bad teams?

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