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.
stands to reason that a contract would kill the portal then; am I right in thinking this? I know there’s enough legal minds here to make an “educated” stab.
Off the top of my head, what’s that work out to among 85 players? $232kish? Throw in a little sugar for a sponsorship and that’s a decent gig. I didn’t read the whole article (Now there’s a ghostly voice in the background… and a faint smell of Marlboro… “Read the whole thing you stupid mothafucka!!!” *Miss you Buddy, h/t RR*) so I’m not sure how title 9 affects it and who gets a share? Is it across the board for all NCAA eligible athletes?
The $20M is for all athletes, technically. That’s where the rubber might meet the road for some sports.
Nice even keeled writeup Coweta. It won’t be the football we grew up with, but not the end of the world either…
i am going to be so pissed when they cancel the UCLA game. There are other ways to increase revenue, but they’ve been printing money for years. How about we just take the 1 time hit and make the fan base happy? Sure, let’s play a tomato can at home instead!
Cancel the OU game last year? Fine. It made big picture sense, and missing a game in the dust bowl in early September? Ok. This is different.
I can’t wait for the Title IX advocates to decide they need a bigger share of the cash. I am no expert on the issue, but I seriously doubt they will all just kick back and say. “sure, let football have all the money.”
Not to get all political, but it appears as if Title IX has bigger fish to fry right now. Will every state follow Title IX moving forward, or is this an opportunity to dump a few non-rev female sports? It will be interesting to watch this circus play out.
I am not in favor of NIL, nor the way it is currently being used. Yes, this is world we live in, so best to figure out a way to make it work. As the article states, we the fan will end up footing the bill one way or another. Will this ruin college football? Probably not, but it is one more crack in the foundation. At some point we will wake up and wonder where the game we love so dearly has gone.
“Will every state follow Title IX moving forward, or is this an opportunity to dump a few non-rev female sports?“
You know that they are not voluntarily following it now, right? The main reason that we have non-rev female sports is so that we can comply with Title IX. Boy, howdy, trying to dump Title IX would make lawyers happy for sure.
If they dump men’s sports that are a drain on finances in equal number with those of women’s sports, would that not meet the requirement of Title IX?
I don’t think so. Numbers of female athletes are supposed to be basically equal to men. With 110 scholarships among football, basketball and baseball alone, where are you going to find an equal number of women? Swimming, tennis, golf are basically washes and women’s basketball and softball also cancel out (and might even produce some revenue) but we have women’s gymnastics, soccer, volleyball and equestrian that I can think of that are trying to keep up with football scholarships. Years ago, they dumped men’s gymnastics and wrestling to try and equalize the numbers. We had both of those when I was in school, but they were easy to cancel because we sucked at those and were never likely to be revenue producing. Admittedly, nothing produces revenue like football, but I don’t think we have that many sports that are a serious drain on finances. So I am not sure what you want to cancel.
Well Title IX will be a little harder to hide than the elephant in the room on how much a scholarship is worth. Room and Board can be reasonably calculated but how much does it really cost the school to add a student to a class. They can use the number that the real money paying students use but that is just a fair market value question. The real good that is coming out of this is there will no longer be partial scholarships. Everybody going to get one now. I talked to the mother of an Equestrian at UGA. She said the parents spend a fortune on their riders. Yes they get a scholarship but they have to furnish all of their own tack. The horses are donated by some alumni but they are not necessary trained. Anyway this is going to see some additional litigation for sure.
They’ll try to squeeze as much blood ($$) out of us turnips (fans) for as long as possible. They’ll make all games subscription only for another revenue source. Gotta pay one way or the other! Once the majority of us get fed up with it then we’ll finally see a normalization of ridiculous salaries/buyouts/guarantees.
Maybe the elimination of frivolous football amenities like stupid fancy barber shops in recruiting suites -(really, a kid with an NIL deal can’t afford a $20 haircut? ).
Until then, we’re all well and good fucked.
The day is coming, sooner rather than later, when my football ticket budget will be freed up for other hobbies.