Hey, did you see that headline? “College Football Players Should Be Making $178K a Year.” That’s not our idea, either. That’s the findings of a study conducted by the National College Players Association and Drexel University.
The study found that college football players playing between 2011 and 2015 should make around $178,000 per year if universities and the NCAA decide to release the stranglehold they have on the game and the players’ ability to not risk their entire careers working for nothing. Of course, that’s just an estimate and it might not be a totally fair price because the NCPA is very pro-pay-the-player as NBC Sports pointed out in their report. However, at least it’s a jumping off point to get the debate rolling about how much of a slice players should get for helping to turn the biggest college programs into a $1.1 billion industry.
Of course, these findings might as well be published in The Journal of S*$& The NCAA Will Perpetually Ignore because they refuse to even address the idea of letting players form a union as evidenced by their response to the Northwestern players’ big legal win. They want nothing to change because college sports is a huge cash cow for them and the entities and sponsorships that they represent. Even the thought of giving players something other than a scholarship for their work on the field would totally disrupt the unholy authority they’ve spent years molding and building. That’s not to say they are completely heartless but the fact that they’ve almost totally shut out the idea of even remodeling the system by the tiniest degree so it doesn’t hurt the players hasn’t won them many points in the PR game. And that’s pretty bad considering that it’s the only game they really know how to run.
