Shannon Sharpe slams Kirby Smart over NIL comments
Fox Sports commentator Shannon Sharpe called out Georgia head coach Kirby Smart for his comments on NIL deals.
On Fox Sports’ Undisputed, Sharpe and his co-host, Skip Bayless, discussed Smart’s issues with young players making more than older players in NIL deals. Sharpe criticized Smart during the segment for having a problem with college players wanting to make more money. He brought up Smart’s salary in 2016 when he became Georgia’s head coach:
“Kirby Smart’s first job as a college head coach, he made $3.75 million. Mark Richt, when he got fired after year 15, made $4.1 million,” Sharpe said. “Young guy coming in making damn near as much as the older guy.”
Unc Shannon sharpe went off on Georgia Bulldogs football coach Kirby Smart over his NIL Comments pic.twitter.com/9VdduGKZgs
— Shannon sharpes burner (@shannonsharpeee) July 20, 2022
Smart made those comments at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention. He had a problem with players making 6 figures per year (Via ESPN):
“What I can’t accept is some young man getting $10,000 a month for four years or three years of college? That’s $120K a year. What do you think he’s doing with that? Is that actually gonna make him more successful in life? Because, I promise you, if you handed me $10K a month my freshman year of college, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. I believe that,” Smart said.
Smart believed the NIL system had flaws with how deals were given to players.
“It’s a reverse system right now, where the bottom coming in is getting rewarded more than the top going out. And that’s tough,” Smart said.
Smart noted at the outset of his remarks that he was initially a proponent of NIL deals, but he did not like how deals were being handed out to younger players. With the state of college football, NIL deals will continue to play a role in the sport.