The dust hadn’t settled long after the announcement that the NCAA agreed to revenue sharing with players and allowing universities to directly pay NIL money to players when Georgia’s Athletic Board met to discuss what Seth Emerson quoted Jere Morehead as calling “the landscape of college athletics.”

It was a closed meeting, but you can bet there were a few reporters around to ask questions of Morehead and Josh Brooks after when it closed. Morehead was asked how the NCAA got to this point and replied

“The challenge that we’ve had is we’ve not been successful in litigation, particularly in front of this particular judge in California,” Morehead said. “And I trust the collective judgment of individuals like (SEC commissioner Greg) Sankey and president Charlie Baker at the NCAA and others that have been guiding us on where we need to go at this point.”

Right, Jere, the problem was the judge. Like Emmertt always said, they were doing it for the kids all along. Jere’s a smart guy. He damn well knows, much better than most, that this week’s sea- change directly resulted from the NCAA’s failure to accept changes that were inevitable.

Seth Emerson noted ($$$) that Josh Brooks says the Dogs gotta up that revenue and, because Georgia’s ticket prices are near the bottom of the SEC, Georgia needs to be more in line with other progams.

“We’re not trying to be top third, but we may need to be middle of the pack,” Brooks said.

And, it looks like the facilities arms race between schools is over for now. That money will get diverted to NIL needs.

But Seth points out some interesting numbers

Georgia and other schools will be able to directly pay their athletes around $20 million collectively every year, probably starting in the fall of 2025. Georgia is better positioned than most to absorb the hit, but it’s still a hit: Georgia’s athletic association is projecting revenues of $175 million and expenses of $162 million for the fiscal year concluding at the end of June

In that same meeting Georgia approved a budget of $192.7 million, (increase from just over a $175 million budget) which is not quite the $20 million difference needed to cover what the university expects to pay the players in revenue sharing, but not far off either. As the Senator might say, that’s just pocket change for a program like Georgia. And the higher budget is a function of what you’d expect, higher revenues that come with being wildly successful in one of the most lucrative college sports (yes, football).

But yes, ticket prices are going up and it’s less likely we see the UCLA series materialize. Gotta get that cupcake revenue for the extra home games.

As for all the hand-wringing about lawsuits from players, there’s an obvious solution to that, but it would require the NCAA to contract with the players collectively. That would take care of portals, players rights, etc. Hopefully, that’s the next shoe to fall in order to give college sports some needed stability.

The sky’s not falling. Changes are coming and things will be different, but the Dawgs are in about as good a position to handle the changes as they could be.

Most of you already heard about the NCAA agreeing to resolve three of the pending anti-trust suits against it on Thursday. These suits essentially challenged the NCAA rules on the compensation and benefits that college athletes are allowed to receive, as well as how NIL money can be paid to college athletes. The headline is that, if the settlement is approved by the court, around $20 billion will be paid by the NCAA to Division I college athletes that played as far back as 2016. And, oh, yeah, now the universities can directly pay players NIL money and revenue sharing is a reality. Some great discussions on the settlement can be found at The Athletic ($$$) and at ESPN. One thing is certain, the NCAA sound byte about amateurism is officially dead.

There’s still Fontenot v. NCAA in Colorado that will address caps on athlete compensation, and there’s no resolution yet on the athlete/employee/union question, but to say there’s gonna be a few changes as a result of this settlement would grossly understate what’s ahead for college athletics.

Part of the revenue sharing model suggests universities will share roughly 22% of the school’s average annual revenue with the athletes. Apparently, that’s estimated to be an average of around $20 million.

There’s going to be many smaller details that will have enormous impacts. For example, the Athletic article cited above sets out

The settlement will also eliminate NCAA scholarship caps, the plaintiffs’ lawyers confirmed in a news release, expected to give way instead to roster limits.

OK, scholarship caps are gone and, instead, players are enjoying some revenue sharing. And roster limits allows the universities to divert money instead to other sports (a nice thought) or to do whatever they choose to do with it (a safer bet). Right now, the football scholarship cap is at 85, but allows many walk-ons over that. Imagine how that plays with a roster limit at 85. Gone are the days of walk-on long snappers. And the era of “I can be the next Stetson Bennett” is over.

Once the judge approves it, the settlement is supposed to go into effect now, not at an undetermined future date. Knowing there is going to be a hard roster cap around 85, how does a coach handle recruiting from now until the judge approves and the details are set? Some version of grey-shirting-on-steroids?

If you think college athletic staffs are bloated now, wait and see how many new positions universities create to handle the new college football world.

There are always unintended consequences when big changes to big operations occur. What do y’all see in your crystal football?

Ugh

The Athletic college football staff posed an interesting question: who would be on the Mt. Rushmore of college football villains? ($$$)

How can you have such a list and not include PAC-12 Commissioners? Answer: you can’t. They were listed and discussed twice.

Sam Khan names the good Mark Emmert, explaining that

[a]t a time when college sports needed a visionary to guide it through what would be its most significant period of change in its history, it instead had Emmert arguing why college athletes should be prevented from profiting off their name, image and likeness. . . . when it became obvious something had to give, the opportunity to be more proactive on those issues was never the route taken.

Sums him up pretty well.

The headscratcher for me is Ari Wasserman naming Jim Harbaugh to the list.

In the final year of his time at Michigan, Harbaugh was involved in two NCAA investigations and then won a national title on the heels of one of the biggest cheating scandals the sport has ever seen. He’s a winner. He walks to the beat of his own drum. And he thumbed his nose at the NCAA on the way to winning it all. This sport is going to miss him.

Pu-leez. Maybe my opinion is colored by the Dawgs’ disassembling of Harbaugh’s Wolverines , but if we’re talking the Mt. Rushmore of college football bad boys, Harbaugh doesn’t sniff the top 10.

All right, Dawg fans, let’s make this exercise more interesting. Who’s at the top on the Dawg’s List of Villains?