By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Nobody cares about other sports. It’s all about football.

As long as football is going well, the money is rolling in, the fans are happy, and the athletic department has money to count it will be that way. Because (financially) nobody cares about other sports.

Georgia, like every SEC program, has a lot of money coming in every year, and the football program’s success means donations are high. But that’s football money, so there’s only so much of it that’s going to be redirected to other sports.

The public perception of an AD still revolves largely around coaching hires. Josh Brooks inherited his most high-profile one: Kirby Smart, who will be at Georgia for a long time.

The football program basically runs itself, with Smart overseeing a staff of about 150 coaches, trainers, student assistants and other staffers.

Athletic Director Brooks still oversees the program, but he knows he can devote more time to the other 20 sports under his purview.

Here’s a look at other UGA programs getting shafted when it comes to spending:

Stegeman Coliseum had to be closed this spring because of a roofing error, it was suggested by staff and directors for the school to build a new arena.

The final decision was fixing the roof and continuing  renovations to the arena. Stegeman Coliseum houses men and women’s basketball, gymnastics, and volleyball.

Similarly, UGA decided on renovations for Foley Field, rather than building a new stadium for the baseball team.

Contrarily, the track program is getting a new facility, or at least the process has begun to build it near the softball and soccer complexes, off Milledge Avenue.

That decision is not about favoring track. Brooks said, “it’s about what makes the most sense”, pointing to the track program having a small space in its current area, which eventually will become a practice field for football.

Georgia has long seemed to need a master plan for facilities instead of jumping from project to project and wasting money. Witness the millions spent in 2010 on a small-scale indoor facility for football, knocked down five years later to build a bigger one.

An official master plan has not been released. Brooks said he has been hesitant to release the plan to remain flexible to change.

With NIL becoming the new wave, donations for facilities may be dwindling. In Georgia’s case, they have their major football projects checked off, just in time.

Georgia wanted to be successful in football and they are now the two-time National Champs. But, that price came with every other program on campus practicing and playing in substandard facilities.