UGA is saving tens of millions in case they need to start paying players

The question of whether or not college athletes should be getting paid is continuously asked time and time again and more so in recent years than ever before. As a result, the University of Georgia is preparing for if that question is ever answered with the simple word “yes.”

Deep down in the southern United States sits a football powerhouse known as the University of Georgia. Over the last couple of years, UGA has invested $24 million into a new indoor practice facility and $63 million in renovations for Sanford Stadium. Around $77 million of that $87 million total came from fundraising.

Let’s just say people who donate to the University of Georgia really love their Bulldogs football.

Well, UGA loves their fans and the future potential of their players enough to have saved $32 million for a very specific reason: player salaries.

UGA built their new facility and renovated the stadium without using what it calls its “reserve money” and that’s the $32 million mentioned above, according to SEC Country. The $32 million “reserve money” is also referred to as “general support” for UGA Athletics.

By general support, Georgia means they are saving that money in case they have to one day pay their student athletes.

“There are a lot of assumptions that people are making, that this revenue stream is going to be there forever,” athletics director Greg McGarity said. “If we end up having to pay student-athletes down the road, where is that money going to come from? … There are a lot of unknowns, and what this allows us to do, and the right way, is to have a buffer there that allows us to cover the unexpected.”

The possibility of the NCAA paying players isn’t out of the question, but it also probably won’t happen anytime soon. Regardless, McGarity and the UGA Athletics program want to make sure they’re ready if that day comes.

“It’s like anything else in life,” athletics director Greg McGarity said Thursday. “There could be a curveball in your personal life, and my life, that we did not anticipate. So (that’s) the one thing that we don’t have to worry about. It’s just solid business practice. It’s probably the best way to say it. It’s the unexpected.”

It’s a brilliant idea and one that other schools probably have as well. It just so happens it’s easier for a program like Georgia to do this compared to a school like Butler who makes the majority of it’s money off of basketball and isn’t a Power 5 school.

“It’s a good practice to have at least six months of operating expenses in case the unforeseen happens, that we don’t know about,” McGarity said. “That’s the financial strength that our athletic board mandated, long before I arrived. So it’s a philosophy that’s been in place for decades. Thank the lord.”

Been in place for decades? Wow now that’s impressive. But once again, it’s probably a lot easier for a school in the SEC to do this compared to a non-Power 5 Division I school.

So let’s do a little bit of an experiment using Georgia and the University of Cincinnati since they are one of the few teams in the AAC with a big football and basketball program.

According to USA TODAY last month, the Georgia football program brought in $41.9 million in SEC revenue sharing during the 2016 year alone.

For Cincinnati, since the numbers for the football program and conference aren’t out yet, we’ll focus on the total for the athletic department as a whole. According to Cincinnati.com, the U of Cincinnati Athletic Program brought in nearly $52 million total last season.

While that $52 million is bigger than UGA’s $41.9 million, let’s keep in mind the $52 million for Cincy includes revenue from their successful football, basketball, baseball, and all their other programs combined. In short, the Georgia football program earned around $10 million less on its own compared to Cincinnati’s ENTIRE athletic program.

Now let’s go back to the “reserve money” fund for athletes. It’s a lot easier for a school like Georgia to create a fund like this when their football program alone brings in nearly as much revenue as some other D-I school’s ENTIRE athletic program does. Georgia has much more money flexibility to continuously save whereas a school like Cincinnati doesn’t.

At the end of the day, there are lot of counter-arguments to this due to small factors like Cincinnati having fewer athletes or being less visible compared to an SEC program. But at the end of the day one counter-question to those points still sticks out; the concept of saving $32 million to pay players is brilliant, but what if a school can’t do that and then suddenly has to pay players? Where is that money going to come from?

For Georgia it’ll come from their piggy bank. For a school like Cincinnati? The NCAA is trying to figure that out.

[SEC Country]