There is a major case going on between the House and the NCAA regarding revenue sharing for each athletic department in the country. And the consensus is that athletic departments will be required to share a portion of this revenue with student athletes for the first time ever.
As of today, it is expected that the amount of revenue that will be required to be given to athletes will be $20.5 million, but it is up to each individual school how they will distribute that money. And Georgia Athletic Director Josh Brooks just shared how UGA plans to distribute this money.
How is Georgia sharing the revenue?
According to Brooks Austin with Georgia Bulldogs on SI, the Georgia football program will receive 75 percent of these funds which equates to $13.5 million. The Georgia men's basketball program will receive 15 percent and the women's basketball program will receive five percent, which comes out to $2.7 million and $900 thousand, respectively. That leaves an additional five percent that will be distributed throughout the rest of the athletic programs at Georgia.
The obvious question on everyone's minds is if this share will give Georgia football a competitive advantage over the rest of the country. And in all honesty, there is a chance a small advantage could be earned by the football program for getting this much of the revenue share.
Most of Georgia's biggest competitors are big on football as well. Athletic departments like Alabama, Auburn, Texas, Ohio State and Oregon all care more about football than every other sport, so there is a good chance they all give a vast majority of this revenue share to the football team as well. But at the very least, it's unlikely they will give more than the 75 percent that Georgia is giving their football program, so UGA at worst will likely break even.
However, there are some schools who care a lot about other sports so they might devote extra money to those sports. Think of Tennessee with baseball and Kentucky with basketball, there's a great chance those programs get a fair amount of this revenue share.
No matter how you look at it, this revenue share will make Georgia more competitive on the recruiting trail in every sport. The hope is that Georgia's coaching staffs will be able to use this extra money to their advantage so they can actually see that advantage play out on the field or court.