College football is a cash cow, and one could argue the current NIL era has left us with far fewer true “student” athletes.
If you make money off your trade, you are a professional. And the amount of money many student athletes are making is insane.
Just look at Monday’s CFP National Championship.
According to Athlon, Miami quarterback Carson Beck has an estimated NIL valuation of $3.1 million. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza is right behind at $2.6 million.
Miami’s Rueben Bain Jr. clocks in at $1.2 million, offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa is at $1.1 million and wide receiver Malachi Toney sits at $878,000 in NIL valuation.
Indiana offensive tackle Carter Smith has an NIL of valuation of $1.2 million.
These are small fractions of the total costs of entire teams.
According to NIL-NCAA, Miami’s total roster cost this season was $24.4 million. Indiana spent $21.1 million.
And big money players yield big revenues for TV networks.
According to Sportico, a 30-second ad spot for Monday’s broadcast on ESPN was $2 million and a single championship game can generate more than $45 million in ad revenue.
Disney’s recent extension for ESPN to broadcast the CFP through 2032, cost about $7.8 billion, averaging around $1.3 billion per year.
Meanwhile, according to ESPN, the average ticket cost at Hard Rock Stadium tonight was $4,300 per seat.
College sports are big business— all the way around.
On campus, though, the numbers tell a story administrators would rather not.
Budgets for athletic facilities swell. Coaching salaries climb. New uniforms, upgraded locker rooms and expanded support staffs are approved without question.
At the same time, academic departments are asked to “do more with less,” quietly absorbing hiring freezes, larger class sizes and reduced course offerings.
The contrast is no longer subtle.
Supporters of increased athletic spending argue that sports drive enrollment, alumni engagement and school pride. And they do.
Winning teams put campuses on national television. They create a sense of community and generate revenue— can’t argue with that.
When I was in graduate school, I met a woman in an online class who lived in Utah. We were students at Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches.
“How did you hear about SFA?” I asked her.
The answer surprised me.
“I watched a basketball game,” she said. “When the Jacks were in the NCAA tournament, I saw the game at home in Utah. That sent me to Google where I discovered SFA and their online graduate programs.”
Athletics can be a front porch for an institution, but a front porch is only impressive if the house behind it is sound.
For most universities, athletics do not pay for themselves. According to NCAA data, many athletic departments operate at a deficit, relying on student fees and institutional support to stay afloat.
That money often comes from the same general funds that support academic programs — the core mission of higher education.
When history departments can’t replace retiring faculty, chemistry labs rely on outdated equipment and advising offices are stretched thin, it’s fair to ask what message we’re sending students.
We’re telling them that spectacle matters more than scholarship, that Saturday crowds outweigh weekday classrooms.
This isn’t an argument against sports. College athletics enrich campus life, provide opportunities for student-athletes and create shared experiences that last a lifetime.
I’ve seen it firsthand, but athletics should enhance the academic mission— not eclipse it. And no college football game ticket should cost $4,300.
At their best, universities are places where ideas are tested, curiosity is rewarded and students learn to think critically about the world they’ll inherit.
Ideally, they are inspired to make the world a better place and work to fix the mistakes made by previous generations.
That work happens in classrooms, labs, libraries and studios.
If higher education is serious about preparing students for careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, budgets must reflect that commitment.
Otherwise, we risk turning universities into entertainment brands with diplomas attached — flashy on the outside, hollow at the core.
That’s a tradeoff no scoreboard or NIL deal can justify.