The New Price of Power
When Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt said on his podcast that LSU could offer its next head coach $15 million per year, the college football world paused, but only for a moment. In today’s market, such a figure barely registers as shocking.
According to Klatt, LSU’s wish list includes Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, and Dan Lanning, three names synonymous with dominance, controversy, and massive paychecks.
If LSU reaches the $15 million range, it will signal more than another arms race among powerhouse programs. It will confirm what many have already suspected: college football has fully evolved into a professional enterprise operating under the illusion of amateurism.
Why College Football Needs a Players’ Union
The Hypocrisy of the System
Nobody should criticize a coach for capitalizing on the market.
If a university or booster collective wants to pay top dollar for a proven winner, that is capitalism at work. The hypocrisy lies in how the system compensates everyone except the players who generate the product. Universities hand out contracts that rival NFL salaries, networks sign multi-billion-dollar media deals, and athletic departments construct palatial facilities funded by fans, donors, and corporate sponsors. Yet the athletes on the field still operate within a chaotic NIL environment that lacks structure or consistency.
If college football can afford to pay a coach $15 million, it can also afford to establish a fair, transparent framework that protects and compensates the athletes who make that paycheck possible.
The Wild West of NIL
When the NCAA opened the door to Name, Image, and Likeness rights, it unleashed a revolution it was utterly unprepared to manage. The result has been a fractured and unpredictable landscape. Players transfer for better deals, collectives operate with little oversight, and the financial gap between elite programs and the rest of the field continues to grow. This is not amateurism; it is an unregulated marketplace disguised as one. Without a governing structure, college football risks collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
Time for a Players’ Union
It is time to stop pretending college football is anything other than a professional sport. That means adopting professional solutions. A players’ union is no longer a radical idea but a necessary one. A collective bargaining unit could establish fair market standards for NIL, outline health and safety protections, and ensure revenue sharing that reflects the sport’s true economics. It could also bring order to the chaos of transfers, roster management, and recruiting inducements.
Players deserve a seat at the table and the same level of structure, security, and representation that coaches and administrators already enjoy.
Building a True League
If college football wants to sustain its massive popularity, it must evolve from a patchwork of conferences into a legitimate league system. The future of the sport depends on cooperation between universities, players, and governing bodies. Revenue sharing should be part of that vision, distributing a portion of TV and playoff earnings directly to players through regulated contracts. Governance must replace the NCAA’s reactive oversight with a unified body that represents the interests of schools, coaches, and players equally. Transparency should become standard practice, with publicly available information on salaries, NIL deals, and compliance measures to ensure accountability.
A true league structure would not destroy college football’s identity. It would preserve it. Fans would still see the rivalries, the traditions, and the pride that define Saturdays in the fall. The only difference would be a system built on integrity, fairness, and long-term stability.
The Bottom Line
College football has become one of America’s most profitable entertainment industries, yet it remains the most poorly managed. The sport celebrates billion-dollar TV deals and $15 million coaching contracts while the players who make the spectacle possible navigate uncertainty and imbalance. The game no longer needs another contract extension, conference realignment, or playoff expansion. It needs leadership, fairness, and a structure worthy of the product it sells.
Pandora’s box is already open, and there is no going back. Based on what has emerged, now is the time to build something sustainable.
