What is the Value of an Alabama Football Player?
Everyone knows that college football is a huge, lucrative business that pours money into schools, but how much does that break down when you look at the value of a player?
Business Insider calculated the Fair Market Value of football players at the collegiate level using data provided by the Department of Education and found that Alabama student-athletes are worth the second-most behind Texas. With the program's annual revenue around $100 million, each Crimson Tide player has a value of $545,357 for the school.
To get to those numbers, they used the NFL's latest collective bargaining agreement. Under that agreement, the players receive a minimum of 47% of all revenue. When you take Alabama's total revenue and split it between the school and players and then divide that up by 85 scholarship athletes, you get a value that surpasses a half-million per player.
Here are the top five programs on this list:
- Texas - $666,029
- Alabama - $545,357
- Michigan - $510,153
- Tennessee - $501,260
- Notre Dame - $488,833
There are 130 programs at the FBS level and Business Insider determined that the average value for every player is still a hefty $163,087.
No matter where you stand on paying college athletes, numbers like these will definitely make you think hard about the topic.