If the universities were putting that revenue in their pockets, maybe your argument would hold more water.
They are. A university paying millions to a coach is no different than paying millions to a professor or a dean. If a business were paying millions to its executives, you wouldn't say that business "isn't putting revenue in its pockets."
As of 2019, the highest-paid public employee in
40 states is a football or basketball coach.
But that revenue is being used to fund other sports that generate very little revenue or none at all (and that includes scholarships for those sports).
The revenue being used to fund, say, badminton does not come "from" football any more than it comes "from" tuition. Revenue is revenue, and the funding for other sports is not tied to football revenue any more than the funding for the medical school is tied to football revenue. It's all just money.
No one is going to tell UNC that
they're not allowed to spend money on the law school because that money came "from" the basketball program.
When you look at the overall numbers in a school's athletic budget, you can say that the athletes are more than fairly compensated across the board. Most colleges barely break even with athletic revenue.
They "barely break even"... after they pay their coaches and ADs millions of dollars, and spend even more millions on stadiums, practice facilities, state-of-the-art equipment, blah blah blah. But the one thing that they DON'T have money for is... paying the players. Sure.
The idea that a ~$50k communications degree (which isn't even likely to be completed for the
most valuable players!) is "fair compensation" is insulting. Tell Jim Harbaugh that instead of receiving his salary as a coach, his kid can attend Michigan for free. See how far that gets you.