Why college athletes deserve six-figure salaries

While an award-winning journalist makes the case for paying student athletes, a new study calculates exactly how much they're worth

Backup quarterback Case McCoy of the University of Texas Longhorns: If college athletes were paid, saysTaylor Branch at The Atlantic, U of T players would be worth at least $500,000.
(Image credit: Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

Pulitzer-winning journalist Taylor Branch is out this week with an Atlantic piece — the "most important article ever written about college sports," according to NPR that pillories the NCAA for failing to pay student athletes. Branch makes a detailed case for paying college athletes while lambasting the NCAA's "cynical hoaxes and legalistic confections." The publication of Branch's article coincides with a new report titled "The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport" (by the National College Players Association and Drexel University) that calculates the exact six-figure dollar values of various types of college athletes. Here, some key talking points:

Why aren't college athletes already paid?

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