Superstar athletes don’t need keyboard warriors white knighting for them, but “professional athletes” are mostly the non-superstars. Leagues like the NFL and NBA collectively bargain with players associations for percent of revenue and profit sharing, minimum salaries, maximum salaries (NBA), team salary caps and salary floors, and other benefits. The other 90% who aren’t LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes, etc. benefit by more money being spread around and other non-paycheck benefits. Since the superstars are a minority of the membership, I’m surprised the rank and file hasn’t pushed for lowering the max salary in the NBA or imposing max salaries in the NFL. Teams spend their cap money, so the players as a whole collectively get more.
The converse is MLB, as sbb brought up. You have teams in LA, NY, etc. paying absurd money to the superstar free agents. That doesn’t do much for the hundreds of mid level types. No salary cap means no salary floor, so you get the A’s, Pirates, etc. The talent discrepancy (or rather competitive imbalance) and the fact the most hate-able teams are always the good ones are turn offs to fans outside of those major markets, which reduces revenue from tv, marketing, merchandise, endorsements, etc. which trickles down to reducing what the players collectively earn. The MLB model is great if you are Shohei, Judge, Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole, the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, or their fans. It’s not ideal for everyone else, players and fans. The NFL is the most popular sport in the world, partially due to competitive balance, and the players collectively make the most of any sport.
For college football, the MLB model certainly favors the blue bloods like us and will keep the championship competition between a dozen or fewer programs. The NFL model would result in blue bloods spending less (capped), everyone else spending more to be competitive, better league products = more revenue = more money available to future players via direct pay and indirect benefits. Better for fans of the bottom 90%. I enjoy Texas playing championship level football, but I also enjoy(ed) college football when upsets were weekly and lots of random teams in and out of the top 25. I think the blue bloods would still dominate in the NFL model due to better coaches, facilities, NFL odds, legitimate NIL endorsement opportunities etc.