CAMDEN — As an Arkansas Razorback fan, Tim Tebow isn’t one of my favorite people. However, there are a lot of things about Tim Tebow that I admire, personally. I think his faith is legit, he always appears to carry himself in a professional manner and even thought it was mostly because luck was on his side, he proved that he was a winner in the NCAA and in the NFL.
I couldn’t stand to hear Tebow talk after hard fought games because most of the interviews were laced with robotic cliches and he sounded like he was running for political office. His famous post game speech after losing to Ole Miss in college sounds like a dramatic reading from Remember the Titans or Brian’s Song.
With all of the talk about college athletes getting paid, it was only a matter of time before Tim Tebow started “Tim Tebowing.”
Tebow took a firm stance - which I can respect. He didn’t like the idea of college football players getting paid for their likeness after the California Senate passed a bill allowing for student athletes to have endorsements. But Tebow’s reasoning is where he lost me.
He passionately shared on an episode of First Take that his football jersey was the highest selling among college athletes but he never received a dime from it and didn’t want to. Again, that’s admirable. Then he talked about the sentimental things in college football. He talked about his grandfather wanting to see Florida win a national championship because it was his dream school. Tebow then said college football would turn into the NFL where the emphasis is all about money.
I agree, money can put a damper on things we enjoy. They stop becoming fun and they start become business. Deals that were usually finalized with a handshake are now finalized by lawyers with the arguing parties possibly never even meeting face-to-face.
But here’s the thing that Tebow is overlooking, college football has been about money for a long time already. This isn’t anything new. In fact, the reason why some recruits pick the schools they pick is because they believe if they can go somewhere where they can play immediately, it will bolster their chances at going pro. Arkansas saw that happen with Mitch Mustang and Damion Williams when it was rumored they would only come if they could start and when their high school coach left the Razorback staff, they went to USC.
Let’s not forget that while Tebow had the No. 1 selling jersey in college, he wasn’t getting much love from the NFL scouts. He was actually predicted to go in the third round and not at quarterback after his junior season, so it actually benefited him - financially - to stay in college for a senior season.
It’s still important to mention that there are still a lot of recruits that select schools where they can play a sport they love and earn a degree.
I’ve always favored college football way more than the NFL. I even liked the NCAA Football games more than Madden just because it had the option play. The NFL is still the most famous sport in America so all of the contracts and money disputes Tebow fears would taint college football may not after all. You gotta consider the fact that the transfer portal was growing every year, coaches were leaving there schools for bigger checks and schools were getting in recruiting and conduct trouble before this California bill even passed.
I personally see both sides of the argument. I believe student athletes should receive something if their jerseys are going to be sold and their faces are going to be in video games, but I have no clue on how to do so in away that it wouldn’t make college football a little messy.
What we do know is the money is there.
Lets take Texas A&M’s football program and look at some numbers. The Aggies recently passed the Texas Longhorns as the most profitably program in NCAA football by making $148M annually over the last three years.
Hold on tight because it’s time for some math.
Now, Jimbo Fisher gets $7.5M of that and defensive coordinator Mike Elko gets $1.8M. Let’s overestimate another $10M going towards the remaining coaches, managers and training staff. Dallasnews.com reported that A&M only spends $1.7M in recruiting. Let’s throw another $2M to the teams that A&M pays to beat up on through the season and another $2M for stadium maintenance. Then let’s calculate a 100 - member football team and it’s staff traveling to a game at $300 per ticket and let’s put them in $100 a night hotels and give them a 100$ budget for food. That equals $50,000 per trip. Now, let’s do that six times for road games and that brings you to $300,000. According to buisnessinsider.com it cost about a $1,000 to equip each player for a game so 12 games for 100 players at $1,000 a pop equals out to $1.2M. I’m sure there are a lot of expenses that I’m forgetting so let’s just set $20M aside for that.
That sounds like a lot but that only comes to $50M in expenditures. You still have about 2/3 of that 148M so why not give student athletes an academic and conduct performance - based $5,000 stipend - which would only be half a million of that estimated $98M profit- to use while they are literally making millions for your school?
I know every school isn’t making $148M, but I do believe there are ways to budget some type of award - not necessarily payment - for D1 student athletes if the schools are going to make money off what they do on the field.