The Big Ten is the new king of college football after winning the last three National Championships. There is a lot of speculation about how they were able to pull that off, but everyone has been falling on NIL and the Transfer Portal giving them more opportunities to succeed at the higest level.
New financial data has been released though and that might explain why the Big Ten is winning at a higher rate. This new data will be difficult for SEC teams to overcome, but Kirby Smart is left with no choice but to find a way to win even in these new circumstances.
Kirby Smart, Georgia must overcome significant financial advantage the Big Ten has
According to new data, the SEC paid out their member schools a total of $1.03 billion this year. That sounds like a lot, right? That's because it is, but the Big Ten paid its members a total of $1.37 billion this year.
Each school gets a slightly different amount of money from their conference, but a $340 million difference is quite substantial. This means that the teams at the bottom of the Big Ten are likely getting paid more than Georgia, and the teams at the top like Ohio State and Michigan are getting paid a lot more.
Smart now has to find a way to navigate this advantage the Big Ten schools have over Georgia, but if anyone is able to figure it out it is him.
Smart has also previously discussed that he thinks the Big Ten has another big advantage in the form of easier schedules. The SEC is a grind where Georgia can't take any game off, but teams like Ohio State and Michigan get multiple "bye weeks" when they play the weak teams in the Big Ten.
This is a lot of things going the Big Ten's way right now, but Smart is as motivated as ever to win another national title. Maybe this year will be the year he gets that done, but in order to do that he will have to overcome multiple advantages the Big Ten has in their favor.
Add us as a preferred source on Google