Football yes. But it is really about the money, with very little of it going to the people who generate all this revenue—the players.
College football means everything to its fans, but for the schools, it is always a matter of dollars and cents. It is not just a business but a very lucrative one, earning tens of millions each year. But significantly, it is a business where there is no worry about labor costs—as they pay at most minimum wages to the workers who produce this revenue.
For those still not convinced that big-time college football is big business, let’s take a quick look at the money. First, what are the top teams worth? The Wall Street Journal reported a list of these evaluations as calculated like a professional team is valued. The resulting figure was what a team might receive if it could be bought and sold like a pro franchise.
Here is a list of the top 10 programs in 2019: (1) Texas, $1.1 billion; (2) Ohio State, $1.0 billion; (3) Alabama, $1.0 billion; (4) Michigan, $925 million; (5) Notre Dame, $913 million; (6) Georgia, $891 million; (7) Oklahoma, $886 million; (8) Auburn, $872 million; (9) LSU, $852 million; and (10) Tennessee, $728 million). Yes, that is billions. And the powerful SEC Conference constitutes five of these ten programs. The SEC is in a talent-rich area of the country. That is another way of saying it is the region with many African Americans.
Oklahoma tops the list of revenue producers, followed closely by Texas. Many of these schools rank high because of television revenue. However, the University of Texas does better than most because it owns the Longhorn Network, which broadcasts its games.
Here is a list of the top ten revenue producers: (1) Oklahoma, $101 million; (2) Texas, $97 million; (3) Georgia, $85 million; (4) Notre Dame, $83 million; (5) Michigan, $72 million; (6) Alabama, $61 million; (7) Tennessee, $61 million; (8) Texas A&M, $56 million; (9) Utah, $53 million; and (10) Arkansas, $52 million.
The most powerful conferences–the SEC, Big Ten, and Pac-12–also run their own lucrative television networks. And Notre Dame has long benefited substantially from television revenues because it has an exclusive deal with NBC to broadcast its games.
Some very profitable schools, like Michigan and Tennessee, supplement their television revenue by generating money from ticket sales in their vast stadiums. Michigan Stadium is currently the largest in the country, seating over 107,000 people, while Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium holds over 102,000 fans. Eighteen years ago, Neyland Stadium held over 107,000 fans. However, the school converted around 5,000 seats to box seats and generated even more income than these individual seats would bring.
With so many football programs so profitable, the prevailing question is, should not so-called “student-athletes” be paid for generating this profit and paid at a rate beyond the average NIL (Names Images and Likenesses) contracts which average only $7,000 to $10,000? Some holdouts, especially athletic programs, say no because only football and basketball produce revenue, and they use this revenue to support the other sports that do not generate income.
I am a former high school and college athlete and remain a sports fan interested in many sports. However, my response to the support-the-other-sports argument is that football and basketball players at the big-time money-generating schools should be paid for their work. If the universities and students want other sports, they should employ student fees to support them. Football and basketball players should not have to function as lowly paid (only tuition, room, and board) entertainers for other students while coaches get millions.