$561 million

At 132 FBS schools, that’s the value of 85 scholarships per year at $50k.

Now, maybe there are 133 FBS schools instead of 132, 82 scholarships per school instead of 85, and the value of the average full football scholarship is $40k or $60k instead of $50k. Or maybe it’s a fair bit higher than $60k. I don’t know. Pick a number. Also consider how much of the scholarship value should be grossed up to a pre-tax-equivalent, as people generally have purchasing power only with after-tax money.

I have a D1 athlete under my roof. Non-revenue sport at a private university. Academics plus room & board plus coaching plus strength training plus physiotherapy plus nutrition plus sports psychology plus travel plus competitive opportunity — I would place the annual value of the experience easily north of $100k. If you asked me to ballpark it to a $5k annual range, I might say $120-125k. And I think a substantial percentage of the value should be grossed up to a pre-tax-equivalent, so this could easily land in a $175-200k pre-tax value. Annual.

I don’t know how much revenue sport athletes should get in addition to all these benefits. Or what the number should be for the real impact players versus medium-impact or low-impact. And I also don’t know how much more any given P2 athlete should get versus the equivalent in rest of the P4/5 or G5.

But there’s a popular narrative that the athletes have been getting absolutely nothing until recently and are still being grotesquely short-changed. I don’t think that is remotely accurate.

Some folks may also discount the value of the academic opportunity. Given that no more than a mid-single-digit percentage of FBS football players have as much as a three-year NFL career, the failure of many athletes to capitalize on the student part of the experience is mainly down to them, their parents and whatever advisors they have exposure to along the way (some employed by the universities they attend, others not).