Matt Chatham: NCAA Profits From Ratings By Using Players As ‘Low-Rent Mules’

Monday’s first-ever college football title game was ESPN’s highest rated broadcast of all time, but the players from Ohio State and Oregon won’t see a cent of the money it brings in.

Despite the fact that the game was rated higher than any NFL game that’s ever been on the network and the fact that ESPN paid hundred of millions of dollars to the NCAA to broadcast the playoffs, players are only allowed to receive gifts worth up to $400. And as former linebacker Matt Chatham explains in his FootballByFootball.com column Wednesday, college sports’ governing body is getting away with “highway robbery.”

“The debate about whether or not college athletes in the country’s top programs should be treated as professionals swings and misses badly,” Chatham writes. “That conversation may have made sense years ago, but we’re decades past that. College football players at the highest level already are professionals. They’re just dramatically underpaid ones.”

Chatham goes so far as to say the players need to take a stand against the NCAA.

“The players in the top programs that are most affected by these TV playoff developments need to organize, get professional representation, force the NCAA to the table, and determine and negotiate for their cash value in the process,” Chatham writes. “And they need to do this sooner rather than later. College football players hold the trump card of not participating, and making all this lucrative business go away. They need to get to the table and ensure their services are no longer the step stool to millions of dollars for everyone but themselves.”