There are many concerns facing college football during its most chaotic era of its existence. One Power Four athletic director chose to speak on the revenue sharing aspect. In doing so, revealed a concerning mentality from those who run college football.
According to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich believes the $20.5M revenue sharing amount is “too small”. His logic behind that opinion is truly alarming.
Radakovich claims that college football rosters could reach $35M to $40M and would eventually settle around $50 Million if there were no cap on spending. Radakovich’s point rests firmly around a historical inability to level a monetary playing field, so why try?
There are many concerns with Radakovich’s comments, and they begin with a defeatist attitude that refuses to acknowledge the root problem. Just because the ‘industry’ has failed to cap spending is no reason to open the flood gates. There is no reality where the correct fix is no regulation on spending.
Part of his comments included, “The market will settle. It always has.” Ask Major League Baseball owners and general managers if their market ever settled. It hasn’t. The only sport that does not have some sort of salary cap has seen salaries triple in only 25 years.
In 2000, Alex Rodriguez had the largest salary to date at that point in time. It was 10 years, $252 Million. Or $25 Million per season. As of 2025, Shohei Ohtani has the largest salary around $70 Million per season. Markets don’t settle when the viewpoint is money spent equals success.
Players should be paid, but that shouldn't be limitless
Every sport, even those with salary caps, see salaries increase. Typically fueled by increases in league and team revenue. The truly laughable part about this take is the presumption that the spending will naturally cap itself magically around the $40M-$50M range.
No, just like everything else in this industry or others, price often go up, they rarely go down and there is no reality where the market would cap itself naturally.
College football has several concerns that need to be addressed and the right answer has nothing to do with uncapped spending or less oversight and control. The answer is not less protections; the answer is more protections.
Not only does college football need a salary cap, but the expectation of spending also needs to be dramatically reduced. Players should earn money on their Name, Image, and Likeness. The answer is not to spend more money, it’s to spend less. It’s as if everyone accepted the idea of NIL but gave no thought to what that is worth, realistically.
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NIL is currently chaotic, but completely unregulated with no limit on spending, and it becomes the Wild Wild West. Even the NFL had to change to slotting rookie salaries because the rookie salaries began to exceed that of all pro veterans. The current model invites bidding wars. The best players go to the highest bidders. If there were no regulation on spending, that dynamic would reach untenable levels in no time.
Those that run college football seem to be resistant to making the changes the sport needs. The most logical conclusion is if they did that, alumni, boosters, partnerships, and endorsement opportunities would not be the only determining factor. Big programs with deep pockets might love the idea of unregulated spending, because it ensures they remain a big program.
College football needs more controls, not less
There are a handful of aspects college football needs to add to the current landscape to both level the playing field and ensure that money spent becomes reasonable and doesn’t become the only factor that matters.
Salary Cap: If you remove athletic directors, team GMs, and players wanting to make as much money as possible, there should be no one fighting against a salary cap. A salary cap simply prevents any one team or program from being the best by outspending everyone. It also requires teams to make difficult roster decisions. No cap on spending creates a NY Yankees vs Colorado Rockies dynamic. One is always competitive and one is never competitive based on spending.
Contracts: College football needs to institute player contracts. Specifically, as it pertains to money and what sort of commitment comes with that money. Instead of a player going to the top bidder only to leave a year later, teams could offer a 3 year/$10 million offer that commits that player to one place for more than a single season.
Transfer portal protections: 10,000 football players entered the portal for this window. Many have said the transfer portal is college free agency. The issue with that is even the NFL does not have any wherewithal whatsoever that allows any player to be a free agent every year if he chooses to. They also need some means of advising players against entering the portal if getting signed is not likely.
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Change the calendar: There seem to be no end of coaches, including former coach Nick Saban, who believe the most immediate need is to move all recruiting events to after the National Championship game. This would eliminate coaches and players leaving before the end of the season. Consider the Lane Kiffin drama and any player who jumped in the portal when their previous team still has games to play.
Lower the amounts being spent: These players are going from making no money at all to making NFL money virtually overnight. NIL is worth something conceptually, but why did this go from, “ok you can make money now” to “every top prospect should be paid they like already play in the NFL”? Instead of accepting it will be $3 Million to $6 Million for a good QB, why can’t that range be $1 Million-$2 Million? They are still getting paid for their likeness.
The Allen Iverson - Reebok effect: Allen Iverson in 1996 signed a 10-year/$50 Million deal. In 2001, Reebok restructured that deal. When Allen Iverson reaches 55 years old, he will have access to a $32 Million trust as well as $800K per year for the rest of his life. That was Reebok looking out for Iverson long term. An idea the NCAA should warm up to.
If a player makes $5 Million in 2026, why couldn’t $3.5-$4 Million of that go into a “nest egg” trust. The vast majority of college football players will never sniff the NFL. This would create a "nest egg" for players who never get to the NFL. If they are going to make NFL money in college, why not protect their long-term interests?
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No guard rails and unregulated spending are not the answer. All that will do is escalate the current problems into bigger ones. For what? So, the top teams can remain top teams? Radakovic' take on the situation reads like someone who sees a way to stack the deck in their favor but wants you to believe it's not only a good idea, but that it is not economic cheating. Which would be the case in every other sport except baseball.
NIL and the transfer portal were supposed to level the playing field. Getting the sport away from the days when only half of the SEC, a few teams from the ACC, two teams from the Big Ten were the only teams that actually mattered in the pursuit of championships.
Radakovic' idea would take the sport right back to dynamic where only about 5-8 teams really have a legitimate shot, from a field of over 130 teams. College football has several large issues to address. Unregulated spending and no guardrails at all are the wrong answer. No matter how you look at it.
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