Getty Image / G Fiume
Over the past couple of years, the pay of players has become a big story in college football.
NIL deals have begun paying players large sums of money to hone their craft at the college level.
Most of those big deals have been given to players in the biggest conferences in college sports, but it seems a coach in one of those conferences wants to see a change.
Maryland head coach Mike Locksley told Fox Sports’ RJ Young that he wants to see a $25 million cap in the Big Ten.
Mike Locksley: "We signed a billion-dollar TV deal in the Big Ten. Let's take $25 million out of that and give it to every school and say, ‘That's your salary cap.'" https://t.co/cL1n5pDNFv
— RJ Young (@RJ_Young) April 26, 2023
“We signed a billion-dollar TV deal in the Big Ten,” Locksley said. “Let’s take $25 million out of that and give it to every school and say, ‘That’s your salary cap. That’s what you recruit with. You manage it how you see fit,’ which is very similar to what the NFL does with their salary cap.”
On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. It would allow the smaller programs in the Big Ten to compete with the powerhouse programs. However, it’s hard to see how this would work on the broader scale of college football.
If other conferences don’t also enact this cap, it could put the Big Ten at a pretty big competitive disadvantage during the postseason.
The nation’s smaller conferences also wouldn’t be able to compete with this salary cap. The mid-major conferences would have a hard time allocating $25 million per team to spend on players.
Setting a salary cap for what college football programs can spend on players on a yearly basis could help create more of a competitive balance in the Big Ten, but it is just tough to see how the conference would actually make this change work.