How teenage athletes are getting paid MILLIONS plus more

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's video, we're going to be covering four interesting and important topics in the college recruiting landscape. Being a college athlete. And you'll see the first one here. College athletes are making a lot of money. That's the first thing that we're going to cover. Very interesting. It is very new. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. Then we're going to get into academic scholarships. We're also going to get into athletic scholarships and roster information for Division 1, Division 2, Division 3. And then lastly we're going to talk about what positions get the most money from an athletic scholarship standpoint. So a lot of good topics today. If you have any questions, please comment down below. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division 1 college baseball scout and recruiter. And now what I do is help talented high school baseball athletes go through this college recruiting process. Help them find the best college fit for them. Them help them find schools that are actually recruiting their position. That's really important. So hopefully you get something out of this video and if you do, please smash that thumbs up that like button right down here and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and just how to get better on and off the field. So let's dive right into it here. So the first one we're going to be covering is how these athletes are getting paid. A couple actually ways they're getting paid. They. The first one is name, image and likeness. You might have heard this before or on TV or in articles. Nil. So they're basically contracts to these student athletes from companies or businesses that are paying them based off their name, image and likeness. Okay. And this is for all sports, by the way. I'm not just talking about baseball for the name, image and likeness. All sports. And I mean some of these student athletes in college are getting paid millions of dollars. It is wild now for college baseball in particular. I don't really have any numbers, but I know that there's some athletes are getting paid, I think in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And of course this is not everybody, but it's a, it's a lot of money. A lot of money. And you can also there's another thing that as a student athlete, which I totally agree with this is a student athlete can create their own business and make money giving lessons to 6 year olds, 7 year olds, 8 year olds, 9 year olds. They could not do that. In the past, they couldn't basically make any money from their own brand or creating their own business. And now, separately, colleges can pay their athletes up to about $6,000. Now most of the Power 5 schools are doing this. Not every school is doing this. But. So there's a lot of money in college athletics, as you probably can imagine, just with all the tv, college football and things like that. But there's a lot of money there. And we, I like to say we are in the wild, wild west of this with the name, image and likeness and how colleges are paying athletes now. And it's getting really, really interesting and will get really interesting as we go into this. So I wanted to bring this up because you, you might have seen this and, or you might not even known about this, but this is what's going on in this landscape. And most of this has happened at the Division 1 level where most of the money is honestly. Okay, so let's dive into the next thing, academic scholarships. So how do these work? So academic scholarships can help a lot to a program and it's very attractive to a college coach. Why? Because there's only so many athletic scholarships a program can give and most are not fully funded. You, some of this might not make sense to you, but I'm going to get into this in the athletic scholarships. But if I'm a college recruiter, I used to be one, and I watch a player and he's very, very academically strong and he's a good athlete and I want him to be a part of my program. I also want to help him get an academic scholarship which the school gives to them. It's not really the baseball program, but the baseball program, the school kind of work hand in hand with that and that can help. So if I give this player an academic scholarship, they can save room on an athletic scholarship because I might not have a lot depending on the programs. And typically you can get a lot more academic money. And guys, money is money. A scholarship is a scholarship, whether it's academic or whether it's athletic. It is super helpful, especially with how expensive colleges are this day. So it's really good. Make sure you're staying focused in the classroom. This is a huge separator in the recruiting landscape. So if I have player A and player B and they're very similar, by the way, there's somebody similar out there to out there that is similar to your athletic ability. And if a college coach is going to pick one, he's going to pick the guy with the higher GPA or the better test score. Okay? So make sure you stay focused in the classroom. And then some of these schools can stack so they could give you an athletic scholarship and then they could also give you an academic scholarship, which is again, super, super helpful. Also, preferred walk ons can get academic money. Usually see that a lot with preferred walk ons. And I'm going to get into that here right now. What is preferred walk ons basically mean and all this stuff. So let's get into it. Athletic scholarships and roster information at Division 1 level. So let's get into the roster first. So 35 active players is the max amount you can have on your roster in the spring. With some small exceptions with COVID So if a freshman is still on the team that went through Covid in 2020, they can be part of the roster and basically work up to 40. But most schools are working down to 35. And by the time you're probably in college, will be at 35 in the fall. You can have as much as you want, meaning you can have as many athletes as you want. And you got to be careful here with over recruitment and things like that and pay attention to schools with over recruitment because you don't want it to turn into a tryout. That's the last thing that you want. But most schools, like mid majors, smaller division ones do not do that. And then eight players on the active 35 can be cannot be on athletic scholarship. So 27 players can be on can be on an athletic scholarship divvied out of 11.7 athletic scholarships. So until things change, 11.7 is the max in athletic scholarships a school can provide among 27 players. So you have 11.7 scholarships that you can divvy out amongst 27 guys. The other eight guys, those are usually either preferred walk ons or walk ons that cannot be on athletic scholarships. Okay? So the thing is, 11.7 is A. It's kind of a crazy number. Nobody really knows exactly why it's 11.7. But not all schools are fully funded. You are fully funded if you have 11.7. Most are not fully funded. Most do not have 11.7. Some have 10, some have 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. Some schools do not have any athletic money. Like the Ivy Leagues in the Patriot Leagues, they do not have any athletic money. So just keep that in mind as we go through this, okay? And any amount of athletic money to a player can be given. There used to be this old rule that it had to be 25%. Now it can be any percent so the old rule, in the old times, I could go to a player, I'm going to give them athletic scholarship. It had to be 25%. Now it can be 5%, it can be 10%, it can be 20%, it could 25, and so on, so on as you go. That's Division 1, Division 2, there's 39 active players and this is the max amount a team can carry. Max amount of athletic scholarship a school can give is 9, similar to D1. Most are not fully funded, so you might not see nine full scholarships. It might be 7, 5, 4, 3, 2. Some might not have any check with schools, but most give academic scholarships as well. Division three, there's no limit on a roster, but they are typically between 35 and 40. This is something that you want to pay attention to when you're looking to a school specifically Division 3. Some Division 3 schools are having JV schools, but you don't want to. You want to be aware of rosters specifically in the fall that are bringing in 50 to 60, 60 players. That turns into a tryout. But also be aware of jv. JV could be a good option for Division Threes because you could work your way up to the varsity level at the Division 3 and have an academic scholarship. A lot of academic scholarships are given at the Division 3 level, and there is no athletic scholarships at the Division 3 level. So FYI there. Okay, let's get to the next one and last one here. What positions get the most money? Most money goes up the middle. So in the recruiting landscape and the recruiting world's college coaches, they say recruiting is the bloodline to your program. And for a strong team, you have to be strong up the middle. What does that mean? Catchers, pitchers, middle infielders and center fielders. You need to be strong there. So where does the most money go to from an athletic scholarship standpoint? Is those positions. If you go from a position standpoint, pitchers give get the most money because there's the most of them. There's usually around 15, 17, 18 pitchers on. So you're going to have the most money compiled in there. And then catchers, middle infielders and center fielders. Not in that particular order. It'd probably be pitchers, middle infielders, catchers than center fielders. So. And center fielders are not that many. Now, that does not mean that a first baseman or a third baseman or a right fielder or a left fielder does not get any money. It's just most of the money goes up the middle in this recruiting world. So just FYI on that. If you have any questions, please comment down below. I'll be happy to answer those. Or if there's any topics that you want me to cover, please leave that down below. And I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Have a great day.