Lots of nuggets to glean from Seth Emerson’s piece about the creation of the Classic City Collective ($$), starting with this link to the PR announcement about it. More specifically, these quotes:
“Matt proved during his time in our program how valuable he can be to our student-athletes and Georgia Athletics. His background and experience within and around collegiate athletics makes him a uniquely positioned leader in NIL,” said Kirby Smart, Georgia Bulldogs head football coach.
“Matt was an incredible asset to the Athletics Association in his role as Assistant AD for Football Compliance. He is a person of high character and integrity and was able to consistently align the coaching staff, support staff and administration to achieve a legal, innovative and fair outcome,” said Josh Brooks, Georgia Bulldogs Director of Athletics.
At a minimum, that clearly indicates the head coach and athletic director are on board. Seth goes on to write that Smart and Brooks put Staton and Hibbs, who had been working towards the same goal independently, together. The implications from that — especially given Smart’s level of control over all aspects of football operations — seem clear.
The second nugget, and it’s one that I’ve wondered about, is this:
Georgia is now operating under the NCAA guidelines, not the Georgia state law, because that had a sunset provision saying that if the NCAA made its own restrictions the Georgia law went away.
“NCAA made its own restrictions” is doing some seriously heavy lifting there, but I presume somebody a lot smarter than me has already kicked the tires on that and blessed it. That being the case, it’s full speed ahead for a UGA collective.
So when can we expect to see that first example of stupid money being offered to a recruit? Not any time soon, if this is to be believed.
“This is absolutely, 100 percent not a way to funnel money to prospective student-athletes who are recruited to the University of Georgia, in any sense. It is 100 percent focused on current student-athletes, the Georgia community, and bridging that gap between those two different entities to help Georgia as a whole,” Staton said. “It’s not anything related to recruiting. But I will say, if we’re successful it definitely will incentivize recruits to want to come (to Georgia).”
Get The Picture 