Coaches making $10 million, conferences making billions, athletes deserve more | D'Angelo

The Big Ten is cashing checks from television networks totaling more than $7 billion (yes, with a B) for its media rights.

Alabama's Nick Saban and Georgia's Kirby Smart recently signed new multi-year contracts worth a combined $206.1 million. Saban, Smart, USC's Lincoln Riley, LSU's Brian Kelly, Ohio State's Ryan Day and Michigan State's Mel Tucker will earn about $60 million combined this season.

Even notoriously stingy Miami has opened the vault, luring home Mario Cristobal for $80 million and, according to reports, committing more than $16 million annually to the entire staff.

And they say NIL is out of control?

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Name, Image and Likeness is not ideal. The NCAA had a chance to set up guidelines and guardrails, and punted to Congress. Our legislators then essentially laughed in the face of one of the most inept organizations in sports.

But for the last year, we've constantly heard NIL is ruining college athletics. And not just NIL. Now the transfer portal apparently is the worst look for college sports since Mike Gundy started sporting a mullet. How dare athletes have the freedom to choose another university that can offer a better situation?

Basically, anything that compensates and empowers the players - the same players who have allowed these coaches to purchase vacation homes on the water or in the mountains (or both), and these universities to build $100 million facilities complete with indoor amusement parks – is bad.

Big Ten athletes are right to say they deserve a piece of the money

I say they deserve more. Time for these administrators sitting in their Xten office chairs behind mahogany desks with their gold-plated State U logo head etched into the bookcase to start sharing that wealth.

Big Ten athletes are right in saying they deserve a piece of that billion or so dollars each school will pocket from the richest television contract in college sports.

Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud was just one of a handful of Big Ten athletes from across different sports who spoke up.

"I’m sure (tuition) is not the worth of what we’re actually worth," he told reporters. "My mom has always told me to know my worth. I know I’m not probably worth $1 billion right now, but I’m worth more (after the media rights deal.)

“I definitely think it should be shared. But if not, at the end of the day, we have the NIL space. We can do it that way."

Ahh, yes. NIL. That pesky legislation the NCAA does not know how to handle, kind of how Saban does not know how to handle being out-recruited by Jimbo Fisher.

Last week the NCAA sent letters to all schools asking them to help investigate violations of name, image and likeness. Two problems with this.

First, with no rules, how can there be violations?

Second, good luck waiting for this phone call.

"Hello, NCAA. I'd like to report that our richest booster not only has started paying the top quarterback prospect in the class of 2028 $1 million a year and all the Skittles he can eat, but he's building his brother in the third grade his personal Legoland." 

When a collective offers an athlete a seven-figure deal, or a student-athlete suddenly is driving a vehicle in which the rear-view mirror is not attached with duct tape, the system is broken. But conferences are paid billions from networks to televise games involving those players, and coaches are earning hundreds of millions off the sweat of those kids ... and that's OK.

And don't act like athletes seeking to monetize his or her brand are ruining college sports. When Jordan Addison transfers from Pitt to USC and starts cashing in on NIL deals, he's the bad guy. But when Brian Kelly leaves Notre Dame for a salary about three times higher at LSU, he's accepting an offer he could not refuse.

Everybody has a right to earn as much money as possible. If the market has been set at $9-$12 million for the top coaches and more than $7 billion for elite conferences, go for it.

But this cannot be a one-way street.

SEC, Big Ten in arms race

And these media rights deals will not stop at $7-$8 billion. The SEC and Big Ten will become the conference version of Saban and Smart, each looking to one-up the other. The SEC brings in Texas and Oklahoma, the Big Ten counters with USC and UCLA, which gives them the No. 2 media market in the country.

The SEC will look into reworking its deal with ESPN/ABC. Even having 12 of the last 16 national champions isn't stopping SEC commissioner Greg Sankey from crying into his Paul Finebaum blanky when realizing Rutgers and Illinois will start pulling in more media rights revenue than Alabama and LSU.

While it's expected SEC schools will make around $70 million a year, the Big Ten's deal is projected to bring each institution $80 to $100 million annually.

Then what happens if (when?) Notre Dame joins the Big Ten? That contract will be renegotiated, another boatload of cash will be split between the membership and the arms race between the two mega-conference will continue.

Meanwhile, the players will rely on College Hunks or some injury attorney for their income.

Tom D'Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Big Ten TV deal, Nick Saban new contract prove athletes deserve more