by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action
The 68 teams that played in the top six NCAA conferences earned over $1 billion in profits this year, according to a CNNMoney analysis of the nation's largest conferences. This profit is 11% higher than the profit from last year.
The most profitable team in the country was the University of Texas, which posted a profit of over $68 million. If the players on the team and their families were compensated for the athletes' work on the field, the average player would earn nearly half a million dollars per year. Their coach, Mack Brown, earns over $5 million per year at a time when the rest of the university is facing significant budget cuts.
The profit margin for the leading six conferences is an astonishing 49%, more than nearly any professional sports franchise in the world. Much of this is due to the fact that the NCAA doesn't compensate it's players, which would be a labor rights violation in nearly any other industry.
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