Lol it'd be difficult to be more obvious

I don't really see the NFL as reasonably similar in this regard. The players in the NFL are truly irreplaceable, the league's whole identity and money printing ability come from the fact that it's at so much of a higher level than any other football played anywhere. The Houston Texans were just recently created and haven't even performed that well and they are still one of the most valuable/profitable sports franchises in the world. I don't think you can just create a new NCAA football team, fill it with league average players, not do all that well and have it compete with Michigan/Texas/Alabama in terms of profitability much less the highest valued professional sports franchises in the world.

Yeah sure, sounds reasonable. Instead of a 50-50 split, do an 80-20 split BUT STILL PAY THE PLAYERS ffs.

I certainly think that reasonable people can disagree over how much Michigan University's ticket sales are due to the caliber of players, how much are due to the coach, how much are due to the storied history of the Michigan franchise, etc. Probably 50-50 isn't really fair. I doubt 10-90 is fair. My guess is they should get a much smaller slice than in the NFL.

At a bare minimum, though, it seems absurd that the elite athletes who are actually playing the game and putting their health at hazard should be paid on par with burger flippers.

The quality of play is certainly a factor in the NFL's success, but its far from the only reason. The salary cap structure promotes parity and allows brand new teams to be just as viable as long-standing franchises. But I bet if you looked at the Texans fan base, it would be comprised mostly of people with ties to the Houston area. In that respect its similar to the ncaa, in that fandom has little to do with the individual players.

Its not a perfect proxy, but its closer than people think.

Sure, it's not the individual players (if the Jaguars players moved to the Giants they will be alot more profitable) but the player pool as a whole. An average NFL roster in a good market makes a ton of money.

I think given the importance of the NCAA restricted player pool, ties to specific institutions and not just cities/regions, large dilution of talent due to size etc we would see income closer to postdoc stipends than NFL salaries. Maybe you don't disagree with that, but the revenue over total players number will still prob not look great.

I'm still not convinced that an institutional tie is significantly more valuable than a regional tie, and I think talent at the NCAA level is pretty obviously more concentrated (despite the greater overall number of teams) than the NFL, but you're right that a small stipend on top of a full scholarship is probably reasonable for most players at major universities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't those sorts of packages vary based on the quality of the candidate? And obviously they come with the understanding that the student will be educated to the best of the university's abilities. Really, I only get fired up about this when stuff like the UNC basketball courses comes out and it becomes obvious that major sport student-athletes are receiving zero value for their free tuition. There are other obvious problems, but that's the big issue.