There are a lot of problems with NIL in college football. The NCAA still hasn’t been able to define and enforce what the true meaning of NIL was meant to be and coaches are still tampering with players not even in the Transfer Portal with promises of large NIL deals if they come to their schools.
But there is another problem with NIL that no one is talking about enough. That problem is the strain that increased spending in college football is having on school's smaller sports.
The good news is that Kirby Smart is here to put a spotlight on that problem as he recently labeled it his “biggest concern for our sport.”
“Again, my biggest concern for our sport is we're going to ruin all the other sports,” Smart said via 247Sports.com. “And people say, 'Well, that's just the way it is.' I don't agree with that because we fund Olympic sports with our program. We develop Olympians. We go to class with people that go throw a javelin… I still think the best thing for a young student is to go get a degree and train to be a professional while also training to be a professional athlete, both of those. We're going to lose that if we keep spending because not everybody can spend at the rate that we're spending."
Kirby Smart defends smaller sports as NIL spending grows to an absurd level
Smart has a unique NIL strategy at Georgia. Instead of overpaying for recruits he instead looks for players who want to come to Georgia because they actually want to be there. He then will reward them when they prove they are both leaders and the best players on the team as they progress in their career.
This strategy creates the perfect culture that Smart is looking for, but the benefit it brings to the rest of Georgia's athletics is extremely important to him as well.
Kirby Smart put he College Football Playoff committed on blast
Smart wants to make sure that college sports stays just that, college sports. Money doesn't just grow on trees, it has to come from somewhere. If NIL deals in college football continues to grow at the rate that it is then the small college sports that don't make any money will suffer. Eventually they will have to be cut just so schools can fund their football programs, and that isn't the right thing to do.
NIL was never meant to be life changing money. Players can make that in the NFL, but NIL has turned into an option where players make more money than they will in their NFL rookie contracts.
The NCAA is partially to blame for this because they won't police their rules they have in place, so now it's up for coaches like Smart to make sure everyone does things the right way. That unfortunately will probably never happen, but it's refreshing to know that Smart cares about every other sports team at Georgia just as much as he cares about winning.
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