The SEC and the economics of college sports

I lost interest in football after high school. Although college athletes were ostensibly amateurs, the perks they enjoyed, above and beyond full scholarships, made them more like professionals than your average college student. And there were regular recruiting scandals to back up that perception. Now that all that financial compensation is above board, those "student-athletes" are basically professionals. 

I attended SEC schools for college. Indeed, I competed as a varsity athlete my freshman year. But cross country wasn't a scholarship sport at Vanderbilt, and Vandy came in last at the conference meet in Tallahassee that year. Our coach was a surgeon who happened to also be a long-distance runner. But other SEC schools like the University of Tennessee—where I transferred after my freshman year—did have scholarship athletes on their CC/track teams. 

"The SEC now pays its players three times more than any other conference. SEC quarterbacks are paid an average of $1 million per year."

Something tells me that CC/track athletes aren’t seeing that kind of money.

https://jabberwocking.com/the-price-of-college-football-14-million-per-team-in-the-sec/