That's if you're getting a full ride. For most athletes it doesn't sound like it's even close to that much. I have no problem with schools making money off it's players - it doesn't matter how much - that's how the world works. Companies hire employees because employees enable the company to generate significant revenue - they deliver a positive ROI. The problem is when the schools/NCAA won't allow kids to make their own deals, create their own brands, launch their own businesses, etc... This is anti-competitive and in many ways unfair to the athletes.
That SAID.... I can also see why this is very troubling for the NCAA and could put college sports at risk altogether - it has less to do with not wanting to help the athletes or thinking they deserve it.
The biggest "issue" I see is when it comes to recruiting and I think this is why the NCAA is so concerned - the bigger schools will likely have boosters willing to pay top dollar offering high paying "jobs" to lure players. As a result, this will give those schools a huge advantage in terms of talent and now you've got teams where the players are essentially professionally paid athletes playing against teams with players who aren't. It could potentially destroy the league altogether if the games become non-competitive and there's a perceived non-level recruiting playing field. This is why the NFL/NBA/MLB drafts are largely based on previous season performance - prioritizing losing teams, salary caps, etc... and also why the NCAA regulates recruiting so heavily - it benefits the league and players to have competitive games and at least some semblance of recruiting fairness, because without it, the interest quickly declines and the audience (which is where the real money - eyeballs watching/fans) would shrink dramatically. Watching pro athletes play against gifted high school athletes is only fun for so long... Unless there's some equal structure as to how much college athletes get paid and recruited - just the idea of unfairness is enough for a significant portion of the audience to lose interest in the games altogether - without the audience and interest, all the revenue goes away, not just for the NCAA, but for the school and the player.
I think the biggest challenge in all this will be figuring out how the NCAA is going maintain a level playing field when it comes to recruiting. If they don't, Gavin Newsom may have just single-handedly destroyed college sports.
