It’s a beautiful October day in Dallas, Texas, with perfect weather, where it is warm enough to not be cold, and cool enough to not be sweating. It is time for the Red River Showdown. 

92,000 fans are packed into the Cotton Bowl, each of which paid about $200 per ticket. Those not able to attend the game are watching at home on FOX, which has a contract with the Big 12 worth about $2.4 billion for the broadcast rights. 

On the sidelines, the teams are decked out in Nike apparel, with each school having a $100+ million dollar deal with the brand to wear their gear. 

Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley, who has a contract worth over $7 million, prepares to take on Texas head coach Tom Herman, who earns over $5 million per year.

All of this money is in circulation because of the student-athletes playing in the game, yet none of the money goes to the players themselves.

College athletes deserve to be paid. When their sport generates as much money as it does, there is no reason for them to not be paid. They are quite literally risking their lives and their careers to compete. And yes, most of them are given scholarships to play for their schools, so they do not have to pay for their college education. People try to make the argument that this is their form of pay, and it is easy to see this topic that way, but they are generating billions of dollars in revenue and the combined value of their scholarships is tiny in comparison. 

Less than a month ago, EA Sports announced that they will be bringing back the beloved college football video game that they stopped producing in 2014. Fans responded cheerfully; they couldn’t have been happier about the announcement. However, there was a question that arose with this announcement. Why now? Why was this beloved game just now making its comeback? Well, let’s start at the beginning. 

The game was discontinued when the NCAA announced that it would not renew its contract with EA Sports due to legal disputes over player likeness. The players’ names themselves were not in the game, but their exact skin color, height, size, and jersey number were clearly present. Just recently, NIL (name, image, and likeness) rights have begun to swing in the other direction, and it’s anticipated that the NCAA or state and federal governments will soon change course and allow college players to earn money off of their likenesses. So, EA has decided to work with these laws and revive one of their most successful games. 

This is just the start of the movement. As time goes on, the players will start to receive more and more rights and will soon be able to fully profit off of their NIL, which they truly deserve.