Jim Harbaugh: Student-athletes should get revenue sharing, including from media deals

Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh was front and center with the media on Saturday as his team prepares for Monday night’s National Championship Game against the Washington Huskies.

You know what that means? While deflecting questions about his plans for the following season, the mercurial head coach was going to dedicate some time to discussing how he thinks student-athletes need to get a fairer cut of the billion-dollar industry they prop up and people like him benefit from.

“We’ve seen a whole conference go into a portal,” Harbaugh said of the Pac-12. “If those kind of things can happen overnight … I don’t know how the sausage gets made completely, but there’s a lot of smart people that do, that know a lot about revenue sharing, know a lot about how those algorithms and economics work. And the real issue is there’s no voice for the players.”

For the third straight season, Harbaugh is receiving overtures from the NFL, but he opted not to discuss that, instead putting the focus on the “ever-growing, ever-increasing revenue that it’d be right for the student-athletes, not just football, all student-athletes, to share in.”

Jim Harbaugh on paying college athletes: “The billions that are being generated, they’re not getting much of.”

Suggests everyone profiting off college athletes, himself included, should take a 5-10% pay cut and put it toward the players. pic.twitter.com/nqtEb8rYiT

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) January 6, 2024

The Wolverines coach would like to see players get a percentage of all of the money that everyone else is making from the sport, from coaches and admins to television stations and conferences.

“If stuff can happen this quick, like we’ve seen this year, then I’m hopeful that there’s a wrong that could be righted quickly as well,” he said. “There used to be a saying: Old coaches — my dad’s used it, my brother’s used it — like, hey, we’re all robbing the same train here. Coaches, administrators, media, television stations, conferences, NCAA. The ones that are really robbing the train — the ones that could really get hurt — are getting a very small piece. … It’s one thing for somebody to say, well, they’re getting NIL, but the billions that are being generated, they’re not getting much of, a very small percentage. They’re getting the same amount as I got in the ’80s. You’re getting a scholarship, room, board, books, and tuition. So it’s like, come on, man, let’s do the right thing here.”

Harbaugh thinks that a percentage of the overall money generated should be entered into a pool and then disseminated to players. That includes money generated through the lucrative TV and media deals that conferences like the Big Ten have with networks like ESPN and Fox Sports.

“I would say this, anyone who is profiting from the student-athletes right now — myself included — coaches, somewhere between 5 and 10%, take 5 to 10% less. That would go for any administrator, any coach, any conference, any university, NCAA — 5 to 10% less and maybe a 10% tax from the television stations, into one pot for the student-athletes. Maybe that’s a start, a way,” Harbaugh said.

“There’s a lot of people profiting off the backs of student-athletes, and they do a lot of work to keep it from them. It’s all kind of rules — and have been doing it for a long time.”

Harbaugh hasn’t been shy about this kind of rhetoric before though he’s always been a little spotty on specifics (understandably). But some feel like the head coach is speaking to a larger concern around the sport, and college athletics at large when it comes to where the wealth is being distributed.

But here's the thing. In a post-employee world, there's gonna be wealth redistribution BEYOND just rich coaches. It's gonna mean pay adjustments for a lot of people. Mostly people making 120K. But also, I think, people making 65. Some of those jobs are gonna go away.

— Matt Brown (@MattBrownEP) January 6, 2024

The thing is, of course, that nothing like what Harbaugh is proposing is even possible when only a handful of people in his position are calling for it. Most football coaches aren’t concerning themselves with media rights agreements and most conference officials and TV executives aren’t in much of a rush to share their millions with players.

Most likely, if anything like that is ever going to happen, it’s going to take the players forcing the issue, and that’s a whole other can of worms.

[ESPN, Matt Brown]