The biggest settlement in the history of college athletics is officially here. The days of massive NIL deals are over as revenue sharing (with a very important cap) are taking over the landscape in college athletics.
And these changes are exactly what Georgia football needs to stay at the top of the college football world.
2 massive NIL changes begin now
The first massive change coming to the NIL landscape in college athletics is that each athletic program will now operate with a revenue share that they can distribute to their programs and players however they see fit. The total for year one is $20.5 million, and it’s expected that anywhere from $13 to $16 million will be used to pay football players.
So what happens with traditional NIL deals?
NIL deals on top of this revenue sharing payment to a player are still allowed, but they will need to be approved by a committee if that amount is over $600. If the committee believes the NIL deal is unfair or not representative of that player’s true value, they can decline the deal and halt it from occurring. This could result in fines to the school and suspension of that player as well.
House settlement will take Georgia football to another level
Georgia is one of the programs who has the most NIL money in the country. On the flip side, they are not the No. 1 program in the country when it comes to NIL either. That discrepancy has caused Georgia to miss on some recruits these last few years that they may have normally won in the past.
This revenue share model however will naturally help level the financial playing field, meaning traditional methods of recruiting will increase in importance. This includes relationship building and selling recruits on the success Georgia finds on the field, and these are two things Kirby Smart and his staff dominate the rest of the country in.
Georgia will still have to decide how they want to distribute their money to their players as some will demand more than others, but this change overall should help propel UGA to another level.