Student-athletes have something to say. Listen to them.

Before you move on to the next line of this story, click on this link and read every word.

Okay, now that you’ve listened to the important voices on this matter, you can listen to mine.

Pac-12 football players are, as you now know, trying to forever change the landscape of college athletics. They want to have a voice when those with power decide how to protect them during a pandemic. They want to be able to profit off of their status as public figures. They want to be paid for their work.

Those requests are reasonable.

We shouldn’t be in a place right now where administrators are working with each other to develop best-practice procedures for how to play football during a pandemic without bringing in the players—the people who are putting themselves at the most risk—for at least some input and the power to collectively say, “No, this isn’t good enough for us.”

We shouldn’t be in a place right now where I—one of many people who would not earn a living if not for the work of student-athletes—can eat for free at a restaurant in exchange for promotion, but one of the student-athletes I cover would be ineligible for making the same trade.

We shouldn’t be in a place where schools are banned from offering some sort of salary to talented athletes.

But budgets are tight, so where would that money come from?

Let’s start by talking about locker rooms.

Clemson’s locker room has a mini-golf course.

Oregon’s locker room features Ferrari leather seats and its bathroom has Italian marble flooring.

Florida State puts iPads into every locker in its locker room. Nebraska does too, but it also throws a plasma screen TV into each locker for good measure.

Plenty of other programs have plenty of other perks.

Why do schools do it?

Easy.

Because when recruits see extravagant team facilities, they’re more likely to attend that school. If all else is equal between two schools, who wouldn’t pick the school that gives you a luxurious locker room?

But what the Pac-12 student-athlete group is trying to explain is, essentially, this:

Pretend that we’re back in 1920 instead of 2020. Pretend that instead of agreeing to play football in exchange for a scholarship, the student-athletes had said, “We deserve to be paid for the work we are doing. We want a percentage cut of the revenue. You can credit our scholarship to our share. We’ll take the rest in cash, just like a partner in any other business.”

This is what would have happened:

As college football revenues grew, schools would still find themselves in recruiting battles. Assuming the schools were offering the same combination of cash and scholarships, the students would still be won over by the more extravagant facilities.

The difference is that none of the facilities would be nearly as extravagant as they are now, because none of the schools would be able to afford iPads in lockers because more of the money would be spent directly on student-athletes.

This is one of the many, many changes that the Pac-12 group is asking for; stop blowing money on the things that don’t matter and give some of that money to student-athletes and their families.

If every school committed to this system—and, of course, the NCAA passed legislation allowing this system—the playing field would be just as level as it is today and schools would hardly be impacted, but the student-athletes would be better off.

In the same way that giving players a share of the money would have prevented excessive athletic facilities, it also would have prevented excessive salaries for coaches and administrators because every team would have less cash to throw around and the entire coaching market would never have grown this large.

The problem is that Northwestern, for example, can’t just get a refund for its $270 million renovation of its lakefront fieldhouse.

And Mel Tucker isn’t going to give back half of the six-year, $33 million contract he earned with a losing season and a whole lot of charisma.

So, where does that leave us?

With a system that everybody knows isn’t perfect but nobody has found a good solution to fix. But, as of right now, the Pac-12 has an opportunity to try to find one.

If athletic director Rick George could give every student-athlete at the University of Colorado a stack of cash to go along with everything the school already offers, I’d be willing to bet that few things in the world would make him happier.

I haven’t met the rest of the Pac-12 athletic directors but it feels fairly safe to assume the same is true for them.

It’s not that simple though.

A century-old system is standing in the way of the progress student-athletes are finally demanding and it won’t be easy to change that system overnight. In fact, it might be impossible.

So, those with power are left with just two options:

1. Silence those brave enough to speak up on behalf of their teammates and maintain the status quo
2. Sit down at a table with the leaders of the #WeAreUnited movement and try in good faith to find an improved path forward

The easier option is clear; it’s the one that doesn’t involve adding more voices to an already-crowded discussion about how to reconfigure a football season during a pandemic with billions of dollars at stake.

But I hope the Conference of Champions tries like hell to do right by those whose backs the billions of dollars have been built upon.