Georgia football zooms past own record by spending $5.3 million on recruiting

Georgia football topped its own record spending for recruiting in the fiscal year 2023 NCAA financial report by nearly $758,000.

Expenses for the period of July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023 totaled nearly $5.3 million, up from more than $4.5 million in the previous fiscal year. Only Texas A&M ($4.0 million) and Clemson ($3.5 million) have also reported more than $3 million recruiting spending in a single year. Those both also came in the fiscal year 2023. Clemson also spent $3.2 million in fiscal year 2022.

Big Ten powers Michigan ($2.4 million) and Ohio State ($1.6 million) combined spent $1.2 million less than Georgia in the latest reports.

Georgia’s figure was obtained via an open records request from the report that schools were required to submit in January.

Georgia’s total operating revenue was a school record $210.1 million and its operating expenses were $186.6 million. The revenue was up $7.1 million from the previous fiscal year while the expenses rose $17.6 million.

The $23.5 million operating surplus is down $10.5 million and is its smallest total since 2016. Georgia says if nearly $22 million in expenses for capital projects and athletics' $4.5 million contribution to the university were included, Georgia would run a deficit for the year.

Georgia’s total operating revenue is the fifth highest among schools whose financial numbers have been reported publicly so far for fiscal year 2023 behind Ohio State’s $279.6 million, Texas A&M’s $279.2 million, Texas’ $271.1 million and Michigan’s $229.6 million. Others reported include: Penn State ($202.2 million), Tennessee ($202.1 million), LSU ($200.5 million), Clemson ($196.0 million) and Auburn ($195.3 million).

USA TODAY Sports requested those through open-records requests in partnership with the Knight-Newhouse Data project at Syracuse University. 

NCAA financial reports from Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma and Nebraska have not yet been made public.

More:SEC reported nearly $853 million in revenue in 2023 fiscal year, new tax records show

Georgia said its operating revenue includes contributions for capital projects.

Texas A&M said $53.2 million of $115.4 million in contributions were because of an unusual level of spending on facility projects. Ohio State’s numbers reflect having eight home football games instead of seven.

The latest financial report covers the 2022 football season when Georgia had six home games and neutral site games in Atlanta and Jacksonville. Georgia also had six home games the previous year.

More than 36% of Georgia football’s recruiting spending — $1.9 million — came on travel from Nov. 25, 2022 to Jan. 27, 2023 as Georgia coach Kirby Smart and staff wrapped up a No. 2 ranked national recruiting class and worked to build a No. 1 ranked recruiting class for 2024.

“Do we spend on recruiting? Absolutely,” Smart said last year. “The SEC schools spend on recruiting. Is it necessary to be competitive? It is, and our administration has been great about supporting us. The numbers that people put out, some of those are eye-popping and catching where some people are counting their numbers a lot differently, especially with flights, which is our No. 1 expense."

Georgia has said that not owning an aircraft leads to some higher costs, but the Athens Banner-Herald detailed spending in the previous cycle that included among other things that the school spent $375,217 at five local restaurants for recruiting.

The latest financial report also showed that Georgia, which won college football’s national championship in both the 2021 and 2022 season, saw its royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorships grow $2.4 million to $23.2 million with football accounting for $1.8 million of that rise.

On the expense side, support staff/administrative pay, benefits and bonuses jumped from $29.0 million to $33.7 million.