Thursday, August 18, 2011

The True Profit of College Football and Basketball

I'll get right to it.  Source data:  http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/

Football:
Average Net Revenue:  $9.35 million
Average Net/Player:  $81,126.27
Net Margin:  42.8%

Basketball:
Average Net Revenue:  $2.57 million
Average Net/Player:  $167,233.81
Net Margin:  38.6%

If we're ever going to get to a system where corruption scandals like what we've seen with the University of Miami football program are a thing of the past, we have to get real about fairly compensating players for their efforts.  I am of the mindset that players should be getting any revenue in excess of cost + 10% (ie., 10% net margin).

Average Player Compensation (Proposed Model):

Basketball:  $140,603.28
Football:  $70,304.51

Given that the expenses column referenced above already included the cost of education for the players, I think these compensation numbers should be in addition to the cost of education.