The myth of the millionaire student-athlete

The march to the College Football Playoffs is underway, with numerous top 25 matchups every week keeping fans engaged. Yet behind the scenes, legal wrangling may change what happens on the field — and tarnish the very meaning of college sports and student-athletes.

The Protect College Sports Act, supported by both the Southeastern and the Big Ten conferences, is the poster child of litigious squabbling. Though it passed with bipartisan 77-22 support in the Senate, the bill is almost certain to have the clock run out when the 119th Congress ends on Jan. 3, 2027. With the results from the midterm elections and a newly shaped House taking form, student-athletes will likely receive the short end of the stick again.

The NCAA once ruled college athletics. But over the past decade, it has lost its influence over the very communities it is charged to oversee. Changes directly influenced by revenue sports like football and men’s basketball have been at the epicenter of the NCAA’s demise. Name, image and likeness rules, the ease of transferring between schools via the transfer portal and extended eligibility have all contributed to the NCAA losing its hold on college athletics for revenue sports.

Any one of these changes would have been a positive change for athletes. Together, they accelerated a disruption beyond what anyone could have imagined.

The House v. NCAA settlement last year allowed schools to pay students directly for participating, with the elite players garnering the lion’s share of the payouts. Adding in name, image and likeness revenue, facilitated by boosters, makes the environment for college revenue sports akin to minor league teams feeding the professional ranks. It also forces boosters to choose how they will allocate their gifts, either to the university or the player.

This direct compensation creep has also intensified debates over athlete employment status and collective bargaining. While the Protect College Sports Act explicitly maintains neutrality on whether athletes can unionize, transparency will inevitably clarify whether revenue-sharing functions as a form of pay.

What receives less discussion are non-revenue sports, such as the Olympics. Whether it is men’s wrestling or women’s soccer, student-athletes in these sports may get modest pay or can negotiate name, image and likeness contracts. Yet they remain students, often getting an education at no out-of-pocket cost to them, while playing a sport that they love and earning a degree that will solidify their future.

In this new environment, non-revenue sports may be squeezed by financial demands on the revenue sports, making them vulnerable to downsizing or termination. The Protect College Sports Act includes provisions to protect against such actions. The same cannot be said about all revenue sport athletes.

Some view their time on a college campus as a stepping stone to their professional career. For those good enough to be stars but who are not quite at the level to play in the professional leagues, name, name, image and likeness deals permit them to earn significant income, incentivizing them to use their full five years of eligibility. For the remaining athletes, their reward is a college degree and the opportunities it will give them upon graduation. Indeed, the Pareto Principle is at work, with a small number of athletes garnering the largest share of the money.

What all this means is that the number of college athletes who benefit is small relative to the total number of student-athletes. Even on a top-ranked football team like Ohio State, walk-ons and practice squad players fill the recently mandated 105-person roster, get to walk the sidelines during games, participate in all team activities, and earn a degree for their participation. They are the true student-athletes, though few of the team’s fans would recognize them by name or on the streets.

Instead of bemoaning how money has tarnished college sports, it is important to recognize that only a small fraction of players receive large paychecks. The infusion of revenue has created opportunities that may not have existed in the past. What is needed is more transparency around who is receiving the payouts and how much is being paid, particularly for those at the top of the heap, as stipulated by the $600 threshold in the Protect College Sports Act of 2026.

This is important for many reasons.

First, it removes speculation around how money is influencing college sports. Transparency regarding such payments reveals the true cost of fielding championship teams. Second, it demonstrates how most college athletes are indeed student-athletes. Lastly, it allows competing universities to know what other schools are paying for their teams. Much like how salary caps exist for professional teams, openly sharing payments and contracts for the use of name, image and likeness creates an opportunity for leveling the playing field, as well as creating accountability for university athletic departments.

Any time money is at stake, there will be detractors fighting to maintain payment privacy. Yet for these highly paid athletes, de facto minor leaguers on a college campus, transparency works as a guardrail to protect the athletes from predatory agents and capping agent fees at 5 percent. It will also mitigate financial risks for schools.

We all know that big-revenue college sports are more about money and less about academics. Yet as the legislative clock continues, Washington must realize that managing the semi-professional sports landscape on campuses requires the ultimate safeguard: absolute transparency.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy.