"Football is unique to American sport in that it can make superstars and millionaires out of its players while also fundamentally disempowering them by ensuring that the majority of money and power in the sport will always go to the institutions that own it.
It begins in college football, where for many schools, the sport keeps the lights on. College coaches can make tens of millions of dollars a year at big football schools. Players are recruited with the promise of a chance at stardom, the education itself offered by the college often given a lower priority in courting these talents.
Student athletes are asked to carry their class load, keep in peak physical condition, and risk life-altering injury every week- and they do it without receiving a cut of the hundreds of millions of dollars that their blood, sweat, and talent bring in.
When the majority of the players are Black, it is hard not to see the racial implications of Black men physically toiling for free in order to make white institutions millions of dollars."
Chapter 7- Mediocre, Ijeoma Oluo
