Advice from one Georgia QB to another:
Aaron Murray saw Georgia quarterback JT Daniels at the David Pollack Foundation Tournament on June 28 at the Georgia Club and offered some free advice.
“I told him he him better go get some deals from some restaurants because he needs to take care of his boys,” said Murray, the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback from 2010-13. “He’s like, ‘I already have.’”
Of more interest to me is what happened to Murray, financially speaking, after his college career came to an abrupt end.
Murray actually got a taste of NIL his senior season. He tore his ACL against Kentucky in the next-to-last game of the 2013 regular season. That meant that he’d miss the season finale against Georgia Tech and the Bulldogs’ appearance in the Gator Bowl.
But it also meant Murray had a chance to make a little cash in the interim. And he made a bunch, actually.
Entering into a marketing agreement with Dan Everett of Everett Sports Marketing (now just ESM), numerous memorabilia-signing events were set up around Atlanta and the Southeast. That included an appearance at a mall in Jacksonville while the Bulldogs were preparing to play Nebraska in the bowl game there a few days later.
ESM also set up a couple of camps for Murray. At $35 an autograph and a $100 or so per camp participant, Murray grossed well over $100,000 in the four months preceding the 2014 NFL draft.
This is what is so absurd to me — the pretense that college athletes have no true value as amateurs, other than what the receive out of the kindness of schools, while seeing hours after the end of their eligibility that it’s a farce.
If you want, get every penny you can, while you can, guys. Trust me, everybody else around you who can makes the same choice.
Get The Picture 
Grossed over $100k? That’s a nice number but the more important one is what ended up in his pocket. Could be $99k but more likely much much less. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for it, but these guys aren’t getting rich off autograph sessions and day camps
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What difference does it make to the point of the post how much Murray paid out in expenses?
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You forgot to mention taxes.
//sarcasm
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I wish I didn’t have to deal with expenses that come along with revenue.
I stand by my claim that “grossing” $100k+ could be great or it could be virtually nothing
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I stand by my position that you are missing the point. You are arguing that we don’t know what Murray’s Schedule C showed as his profit. zwho cares what that number may have been. Because of the injury Murray would have a Schedule C in 2013 whereas if he hadn’t been injured he would not have any Schedule C revenue .
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Whatever taxes or expenses he paid, still doesn’t mean he didn’t make a hell of a lot more money in the interim than he made previously. Good for him.
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Exactly
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“…but these guys aren’t getting rich off autograph sessions and day camps.”
Define ‘rich’. A 22 year old single male who has $90,000 burning a hole in his pocket and no house payments, family to support, etc. is as free, rich if you prefer, as anyone in our society. All that before his first day on a job. There are billionaires who don’t have that kind of freedom.
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Your comment sent me here
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I appreciate the Gary Gulman link. Very underrated comedian. Check out his bit on The Karate Kid. Hilarious.
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If they are banking (not grossing) $90k I agree with you. But the vast vast majority of them won’t see anything close to that from NIL
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So what? Not all insurance salesmen get rich but at least they are able to ply their trade.
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That’s not really the point of this post.
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This is where being the local college QB or star RB or star WR or star anything can help these kids. Aaron Murray’s value was literally at its highest while he was at Georgia. That same thing was true for a lot of guys — anyone from Michael Bennett or Joe Cox or Hutson Mason or Keith Marshall or Lawrence Cager or any number of guys whose value as a Georgia player for name recognition and exploitation was highest while in school.
I mean, think how much money Hot Rod Blankenship had to leave on the table while he was at UGA. Yes, he’s a pro kicker now, but dude could have easily cleared — yes, taken home after taxes — well over $250,000 a year by being able to exploit his own likeness and getting to sell the T-shirts, sign the autographs, etc.
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That’s simply not true. I can promise you Aaron Murray is making a lot more money from cbs than he would have ever sniffed from NIL
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Correcting myself after reading your comment completely as opposed to skimming it. Agree these guys have been forced to leave money on the table
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Right — not saying that they aren’t doing well now, but more saying that these guys are leaving thousands on the table by not being able to exploit their local fame.
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25-years ago, I was in Athens on business and decided to stop by Steg to catch a glimpse of basketball practice. Football players were in there running steps and laps. I wrote what I thought was an innocent, nonconfrontational letter to the athletic department asking how many hours a player would spend on conditioning, so on, in the off-season. I got an irrate letter in return, essentially telling me to butt out.
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This article is incomplete. I need to hear about the irate linemen and jealous receivers who didn’t get a piece of Aaron’s pie.
/s
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Nor did it reference an obligation to file a quarterly tax return.
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Hellooooo… the expenses he would have incurred? Murray is so lucky the NCAA saved him from himself. He was the next Willie Nelson.
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Sort of related to the other journalism post, but the story about Murray using his mom’s credit card to ice cream for the OLine are the sorts of stories that I want out of college football.
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