Linked by Gemini: From https://en.as.com/nfl/these-are-the-lowest-paid-players-in-t...

> The minimum salary for the 2025 NFL season was $840,000

Raise the minimum salary of a Ph.D. student to that level and we have a deal. (The pocket salary, not $830,000 self pay to the university and $10,000 for the pocket of the student.)

Also, the work in NFL is more standardized, all teams play the same games per week, have a similar amount of training time, ...

In a Ph.D. the topic depends a lot of the advisor. It would be like mixing all the sports in the same bag, and for a weird reason the Waterpolo team from Alaska can pick you that are an expert in Tenis.