The Average Football Player At A Top School Is Worth Half A Million Dollars
The call for universities to pay their athletes has reached a fever pitch in the last few years. There are a lot of issues at hand, and the problem is much more complex than either side presents it to be. One thing is for sure, though: the top football schools are making a fuck-ton of money off of their players. Business Insider recently did some math that backs up that assertion.
The website found these schools to have the highest fair market value for their players:
Business Insider took data on the 10 most profitable programs from BusinessOfCollegSports.com and then combined it loosely with the revenue sharing system implemented by the NFL. After accounting for a 47 percent revenue split going to the players, you end up with the average football player at the most profitable school, Texas, being worth about $605,000. For reference, that’s about four Lambos to get a DUI in, a full semester of a live-in prostitute, or about 18,000 orders of crab legs from Publix. Granted, that’s pretty rudimentary and it assumes all scholarship players would be paid equally, regardless of skill. That’s out of a total of $109.4 million in revenue, which pales in comparison to the $3.8 million they pay out in student aid.
Sure, we’re looking at this as if the huge blue chip recruits wouldn’t be offered essentially max deals versus a walk-on who worked his way up to a scholarship. Even then, just looking at the average really shows you how these programs are just cleaning up when it comes to revenue. But yeah, let’s keep suspending players for signing autographs. That seems like the way to go..
[via Business Insider]
The players get perks beyond belief on top of their tuition. If we payed them as well, they would try even less in school and we would run into to more problems with college athletes.
11 years ago at 3:51 pmName one industry where paying the employees made the product worse. Science nerds get paid cash as well as grant money to do research for universities, why can’t my favorite football players get paid in a similar way?
11 years ago at 4:07 pmYour favorite players do get paid asshole. How much is tuition at your school. They get paid that. Plus they get unlimited amounts of food, free use of some of the best training equipment in the world, expert level coaches who train them for their chosen career (football). They get all medical expenses taken care of while in college, free tutors to help them in school. Free room and board. What more do you want to give them?
11 years ago at 4:41 pmOne thing I know is this: I would never do an unpaid internship in exchange for training, odd perks, and experience. I’d rather do volunteer work and call it what it is. My time, especially if I’m helping make a profit for someone else, is worth financial compensation.
How about we get rid of athletic scholarships and instead pay the college student athletes with money? If they put that money towards tuition, that is their prerogative.
11 years ago at 8:19 pmSo let’s say you want to be a doctor. You’re offered an unpaid internship at John Hopkins University, where you get to work with the best doctors in the world, with cutting edge equipment and procedures. Oh yeah and they’re gonna pay for your tuition, your meal plan, your dorm room, and all medical expenses while at school. But you’re turning that down to pay your own way through college and do volunteer work? Give me a break.
11 years ago at 10:01 pmNo ya goober, learn to read and learn to comprehend what you read..
I’d rather be paid in cash instead of getting paid in perks. The equipment argument is dumb because I’d be using that to help with my work output.
11 years ago at 11:41 pmOkay so what happens when a player burns through all their money and can’t afford their food? Because we all know college kids are so responsible when it comes to moneyb
11 years ago at 3:34 amI can read, before you said you’d rather call it volunteer work now you’re saying you want to get paid. These players can’t get paid in their profession until they are 3 years removed from high school. So yeah they could pay for their own coaches and their own equipment and their own living expenses for3 years or they could get all that for free and get a free education as well.
11 years ago at 1:05 pmAnd I quote, “how about we get rid of athletic scholarships and instead pay the college student athletes with money?…”
Since you missed it the first time, and again after I reminded you and posted something similar once more, I still don’t think you can read.
11 years ago at 1:33 pmFuck the perks they already get. It’s the fact that someone else is making money off of them. I would prefer they not get paid but it doesn’t make sense that someone else should profit from their hard work…there has got to be a better way. Maybe offer them health insurance for 20 years after college or a trust fund they get when the turn 35. There just has to be a better way than the system we have now.
11 years ago at 4:19 pmIf you never played college ball, then you don’t know shit about how these gets permanently destroy their bodies for this game and their university. They are grossly under compensated.
11 years ago at 8:41 amThe players already get perks behind belief on top of their full rides. If we started to pay them as well, we would run into so many more problems with college athletes. They would do worse in school cause they are making money, why try? And they will feel even more above the law.
11 years ago at 3:53 pmNo, they’re not.
11 years ago at 4:09 pmIf these players would study majors that lead to worthwhile careers, they could make that much money over their lifetime. Playing football and going to school for free seems like a good investment to me.
11 years ago at 4:17 pmThe better the recruits, the more successful the program, the more revenue each university generates. College football is a gold mine, and these schools benefit from the successes of their players. The coaches’ livelihoods depend on the performance of 18-22 year olds. What incentive would any of these parties have to encourage players to take on a “real” major? They spend more time each week on football than most spend on full time jobs. Many people make money off a player’s likeness except, you guessed it, the player. Scholarships are a nominal investment when you consider the money being brought into the program each year. Players are damned to make it pro or go broke. Why deny them the opportunity to make a little money off their performance when they’re in demand.
11 years ago at 1:25 amIt’s kind of hard to get a worthwhile education when your top tier athletic program is demanding around 30 hours a week from you. Not to mention the physical toll it puts on your body to play a sport like football.
11 years ago at 9:12 pmPeople seem to forget that school comes before football, and getting free out-of-state tuition is essentially being paid a good deal of money to play a game and get more ass than anyone else in a 20 mile radius.
11 years ago at 4:43 pmThe football pays for the school though. Classes do not generate revenue. And not many people within college sports believe that school comes before the football.
11 years ago at 12:11 amThey do know there’s the word “college” in college athlete right?
11 years ago at 7:25 pmTell that to the coaches and athletic program that makes these players work their asses off to the point where they’re to exhausted and time strapped to study. It’s not so easy champ.
11 years ago at 9:14 pmHere’s the deal. They go to school for football or basketball or whatever sport they play in hopes to sign a contract with a professional team. If you pay them a salary before they graduate, what is the incentive for them to play professionally? Fucking deal with it
11 years ago at 7:47 pmYou’re an idiot. That’s like saying, “If you give college students internships over the summer, they lose their incentive to get full time jobs after they graduate.”
11 years ago at 10:05 pmI know someone working for one of these companies. The compensation described above is not accurate.
11 years ago at 9:17 pmOnly in America can a guilty man be declared a martyr and a role model solely because of skin color. Who cares about what crimes were committed.. Let’s have a “dialogue” aka rioting aka blame whitey
11 years ago at 11:29 pmSay whatever you like about them already getting paid with tuition, room and board and all the perks etc. but not allowing the best players to make money off of their own name and likeness is horseshit.
11 years ago at 12:13 am