Yes, Paige made more in college than her WNBA rookie salary. But that ignores the NIL that she earned while in her first year of the W. Her personal earnings from podcasts, shoe contracts and other endorsements didn’t disappear. She carried them with her to the pros and may have increased them so that her gross income increased. The more fair comparison is College revenue share vs. first year salary.
I don’t know if players would vote for it but I think a school’s annual revenue share should be divided equally between all players on the roster. Third party NIL belongs to the individual.
Let’s look at the SEC proposed model. Wbb teams get about 5% of the House 20.5 million revenue sharing cap. That’s about 1 million dollars for a Wbb. Assume a 15 member team. That’s 67,000 per player! Or for a 10 player roster like SCar’s in 2024 that’s 100k. Good base annual pay, but not
Obscene. And team unity isn’t disrupted by inequity of rev share. Of course, the 3rd party contract rights still belong to the individual players,
Forgive my digression.