re: CA started this NIL BS. Now they want more

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I never said the player play NO part in generating revenue.

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To be fair, you were replying to a post that said:

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The players don't generate any revenue.

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..to which you replied “this is correct.”

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Of course, the school needs to field a team, and the better the team, the more revenue generated. That requires players.

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And the reason revenues may be down in a bad year is that everyone loves a winner. Simple as that.

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Right. So is it fair to say that players do have value to the extent that:
A) the team’s success leads to increased revenue, and
B) the player contributes to the team’s success?

To put it another way, here’s a thought experiment:

Imagine that the NCAA lifts all of the amateurism rules, and every university is allowed to pay players directly. Imagine that despite the new rules, LSU decides not to pay our players anything beyond the scholarships and stipends they are currently receiving.

Now let a handful of recruiting cycles go by, and imagine how that decision not to pay our players affects the team’s performance. What does that do to athletic revenue (relative to our peers) - including tickets, merchandise, TV money, bowl money, etc. - over a longer period of time?

If you think LSU’s athletic revenue would stay about the same (again, relative to our peers), then it’s probably fair to say the players don’t have much value.

OTOH if you think the team’s performance would drop, and that the accumulation of poor performance would lead to loss of revenue (or comparably less revenue increase than other teams, considering the way TV contracts have been skyrocketing) then it’s pretty clear that the players do have value to the school beyond what they are currently receiving.