Money for all but players.
The University of Georgia recently announced it was constructing a football operations building that will cost about $80 million. The Georgia college football team is just keeping up with other programs in the Southeast Conference. There are also plans at Kansas State and Central Florida University to upgrade existing facilities with the theory that high school players go to a school because of magnificent facilities. Even Rutgers University has joined the let’s upgrade our facility crowd with a new locker room. Funny thing about all the spending to impress talented high school football players in the recruitment efforts. The big-time programs won’t give players a nickel for providing entertainment that brings in big money from television partners, club seats and luxury box ticket holders and marketing partners. The players might get an education and besides they are student-athletes and not college employees.
Student-athletes should be getting a big pay day for providing entertainment for people and playing for something? But they aren’t. The coaches are getting big paychecks and television is handing out big money to the NCAA. The athletes get nothing but a college scholarship. The television partners will do some profiles on some athletes but the coaches are the stars of the TV show even though they don’t play, and really have very little control of the game. Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney is getting $93 million over a ten-year period to run the football program. There is some sort of justification that the players are getting a free education, that is partially true, but they are not getting everything paid and they are on a year to year contract. The term “student-athlete” is a cover to get out of paying and providing health care for the talent. Everyone makes money from college sports except the stars of the show, the players. It is madness.
