Tucked away in a quaint university town in the Midwest sits the world’s third-largest sports stadium. Known aptly as the Big House, the American-football stadium in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan Wolverines, can pack in 115,000 fans. One of the world’s most capacious, its gate receipts helped Michigan’s football programme generate $150m in revenue last year, including television rights. Yet the athletes on the field earned no salaries. In fact, for decades, no college athlete in America has been paid directly by their university. That is about to change.