ATHENS — Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer once said “football is the engine that drives the revenue train” when it comes to the collegiate athletic funding model.

But the coal needed to build a competitive engine — contribution dollars — has become more difficult to mine amid collegiate sports’ current landscape.

“There’s donor fatigue, and it’s not just at Georgia, it’s all around,” Greg McGarity, who retired from his post as UGA’s athletic director in 2020 and now serves as the Gator Bowl Sports president, said on Monday.

“There really is donor burnout.”

‘Out of control arms race’

Part of it is simple economics, with President Donald Trump recently describing college sports as an “out of control arms race” with schools outbidding one another for elite recruits and key transfers.

Former Georgia quarterback Carson Beck became a poster child for the sort of high-dollar dealings that have thrown donors in a tizzy, once posting a picture of a $270,000-plus Lamborghini SUV he acquired through his 2024 NIL dealings.

Beck, who transferred to Miami for his final season of eligibility, has since acknowledged his name, image and likeness exuberance left room for criticism.

“The first three years of my college experience, we were getting a stipend check,” Beck told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, putting the financial changes NIL has brought into perspective.

“I’d fill up my tank with gas and get the food for the week, and that’s all I was doing. We were living in the dorms having a good old time.”

Carl Parks, a UGA grad and longtime program donor, notes how drastically players’ finances have escalated in what’s been referred to as a “Wild, Wild West” NIL era.

“I’m not opposed to players being paid, but it has gotten out of hand; you can’t run a Little League program without having guard rails, and there are no guard rails in collegiate sports that are effective and enforceable,” Parks said.

“Before NIL came along, from a financial equivalency point of view, college athletes weren’t poor. They were doing pretty well when you look at all the things they were getting: the value of their scholarships, the strength and conditioning training, the development to prepare for a professional playing or coaching career and the facilities provided for them.”

And yet, Parks and several other Georgia boosters continue to provide strong financial support, with football spearheading the school’s fundraising.

Football charging at G-Day

UGA will once again charge for its annual G-Day spring scrimmage, with fans paying $10 each to attend as the school looks for more revenue.

In the 2024-25 fiscal year, Coach Kirby Smart’s football program accounted for nearly 90% (88.2) of the $94.2 million generated through ticket sale ($42.1 million) and contribution ($52.1 million) revenue at the University of Georgia.

In all, UGA athletics has taken in approximately $303.7 million in athletic department contributions in the four fiscal calendar years since the introduction of NIL in July of 2021.

But as Smart pointed out in a Tuesday interview with 680 the Fan, UGA is no different from any other athletic department in its need for more dollars, as it looks to compete for championships in the 21 scholarship sports it sponsors.

“Every athletic department right now is trying to figure out how they’re gonna breathe,” Smart said when asked about spring games becoming potential revenue-producing events.

“How they’re gonna pay for … gymnastics and women’s basketball and equestrian and track and field. How are they gonna fund it and pay for it?”

Georgia’s operating expenses ($240 million) were greater than its operating revenue ($233.5 million) last year for the first time since Josh Brooks took over as athletic director in 2020, in part, because of increased spending on NIL-related expenses.

UGA isn’t alone in that respect, as The New York Times reported that UCLA was among four Big Ten schools operating in the red last year with a $21.6 million deficit.

The fiscal year before — 2023-24 — the Ohio State athletic department operated at a $37.7 million deficit, leading into its CFP championship season.

Georgia, meanwhile, brought in $241.8 million in revenue in the 2023-24 fiscal year) with $194.3 million in operating expenses — a $47.5 million surplus.

Donor response pivotal

Football donations ($42.7 million) were key to that surplus and have been pivotal throughout Smart’s tenure.

UGA football facilities had fallen behind other elite SEC programs in the Mark Richt era, and part of Smart accepting the head coaching job was a commitment to improve facilities.

Richt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Sanford Stadium’s West End Zone project — aimed at game day recruiting — “was a necessity that was already on the board” along with a plan for an indoor football facility when he exited the program to make way for Smart following the 2015 season.

“It was easier for donors to give money when it came to improving facilities,” McGarity said, “because they could see the results of what they were giving to in brick-and-mortar.”

The West End Zone project was completed in August of 2018, costing some $63 million, after the Payne Indoor Facility was completed in 2017 at a cost of $30.2 million.

“It’s now in a different form with NIL, but the bottom line is there has always been some form of fundraising necessary to compete for championships,” Richt said.

“Back then, the thing you could do for the players was to try to provide them with the best facilities in the nation, along with building meaningful relationships and helping them develop as people and players.”

Smart has emphasized the same player development approach while staying at the forefront, working within this new collegiate sports model.

Smart set early NIL standard

“The guy that manages that (NIL) best, manages the egos and the problems or benefits that may come with it, is probably gonna be a little bit ahead of the opponent,” Smart said in May of 2021 with NIL on the verge of taking effect.

Some eight months after the legislation took effect, Smart won the first of two CFP titles, producing a 15-player NFL-record draft class in its wake, before Georgia repeated with an unprecedented second CFP title in the four-team playoff era the following season.

Three years have passed since Georgia — or any other SEC team — has won the College Football Playoff championship.

A top-heavy Big Ten Conference has cashed in on its industry-leading seven-year, $7 billion-plus media rights deal and deep-pocket donors, winning the past three football national titles.

Indiana, with its billionaire booster alum Mark Cuban cutting checks, is the most recent Big Ten team to win the national championship, thanks in part to beating out Georgia for Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and projected No. 1 overall draft pick Fernando Mendoza.

Feeling the squeeze

With recruiting stakes higher than ever, even the most loyal of Georgia donors are feeling the squeeze as UGA football fights to stay in the national championship hunt and produce enough revenue to support the athletic department.

“I’m 81, my estate plan is already put to bed,” UGA donor Mike Cheek said. “Everywhere you turn, different coaches have their hands out, and when you get right down to it, they do have needs.”

Cheek, like many others, believes it’s a case of collegiate sports needing to find new areas to generate revenue and donations.

“We have to get into the corporate business world,” Cheek said. “When you look at the big corporations in Atlanta, the numbers are staggering, but we don’t have a Mark Cuban.

“Where the fatigue sets in is that it’s more than football — if it was just football, that would be one thing, but you have baseball and basketball, too.”

UGA donor Red Petrovs said donating in today’s NIL climate presents a challenge for those doing the giving.

“At some point you’re killing the golden goose,” Petrovs, 79, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You’re cheering for the uniform on some kid’s body who doesn’t care where the money comes from.

“It seemed there was loyalty built up before, you identified with the player, you followed his recruiting, you knew his background, and you watched him develop.”

Petrovs said it helps that Smart continues to build the Bulldogs football program very much in that way, as opposed to other football programs that bring in dozens of transfers in each class.

“It’s a value proposition, you have to feel you are getting something for the money you are donating — something of intrinsic value,” Petrovs said. “When it’s strictly to an NIL deal, where a guy may not know where it’s coming from or may leave tomorrow, the value disposition disappears.

“At least with Kirby in football, you see players signing that will stay to be developed for three years.”

Georgia president prolific

There’s no question the fall of amateurism, which became official with last year’s ruling in the landmark House v. NCAA case, has left collegiate sports with a free agent model that many feel is not sustainable.

It’s why UGA president Jere Morehead has stayed active on NCAA executive leadership committees, and most recently, the President’s Oversight Committee formed by Trump to bring stability to collegiate sports.

In the meantime, Georgia fundraisers will continue to brainstorm to find ways to raise money and enable the Bulldogs coaches to compete for championships.

“We’re Georgia, we do things a certain way,” Brooks said at UGA’s most recent athletic board meeting, when asked about the usage of corporate logos on the field and perhaps on jerseys.

“We take pride, and we love our partnerships with our key partners, so it has to be the right fit for us, it has to make sense, we’re not just out here chasing dollars for the sake of chasing dollars. We want to do it the right way.”