Yes, they were only talking about football players. From what I gather, it was all football players not just scholarship football players. The University of Texas did a study that concluded their 85 scholarship football players had a fair market value of over $670,000 per year.
Yes, the money would have to be spread to all scholarship athletes both male and female. However, one must really look at everything. John Cook signed a contract a year ago making him Nebraska's highest paid women's coach. His base salary is $600,000. We are potentially looking at paying a football coach nearly 10 times that amount. The B1G invited us into their conference because of football. Football is where the money is at. The colleges make up the NCAA, and the NCAA makes up the rules. They don't want those risking their health and life to share in the riches. They want to keep all the money and then use it to buy the best coach.
I don't know much about how much money high school football coaches get paid. I highly doubt there's a huge pay difference between coach A who's won five state titles and coach B who has yet to win a state title. High school football and college football are similar in that they both involve amateur athletes. Yet, there's also a huge difference. Some college football coaches are paid more than the highest paid NFL coach who coaches paid professional athletes. Personally, I think it's wrong for colleges to use the NCAA as a shield for their agenda. John Cook is as good as any coach in their respective sport, yet he makes a fraction of what the top college football coaches and men's basketball coaches make. By properly compensating college athletes for what they bring into the school, it might just make the playing field a little more level.