I think we all get it now. It's time for the NCAA to pay players for their jersey sales. It's not fair that Georgia's A.J. Green loses three games of his eligibility for selling his real jersey, but Georgia makes money off selling replicas his No. 8 jerseys.
So let's now take it to the next step.
How much would a guy like A.J. Green make if that happened?
The answer? Not as much as you think.
In fact, he probably made more from the sale of his bowl jersey ($1,000) than he'd make for getting his share of what Georgia sells this year.
Let's take you through the math.
Let's say the Georgia bookstore sells the jerseys — they have 22 different versions of No. 8 — for an average of $60.
They make $30 by selling it at that price. The licensee, Nike, takes the rest and distributes it to who make the jersey and gives 10 percent of that money to the schools.
So on a $60 A.J. Green jersey, Georgia only makes $3.
Now let's say the NCAA allows the player to take part in these sales, as they should. They allow the Nikes of the world to put the names on the back. And since that would likely result in more sales, let's say the licensee throws an additional five percent royalty to the school.
So now the school has a 15 percent royalty or $4.50. They split evenly with the player, so the player gets $2.25 per jersey.
So how many A.J. Green jerseys would sell? One insider who is in the business said, aside from Tim Tebow, the biggest players sell about 1,500 jerseys. Green doesn't fall into the category. Another insider, who sells college jerseys, said Georgia could expect to sell about 300 No. 8 jerseys this year.
How much would that leave A.J Green with? $675 — or $325 less than what he got for selling his Independence Bowl jersey.
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