As you would expect for a man who broke a decades-long drought to deliver a national title to the Georgia Bulldogs, Kirby Smart has a salary amongst the highest in college football. Success doesn’t come cheap, so what is Smart’s salary, contract, and net worth ahead following the 2022 college football season?
Kirby Smart’s Salary and Contract in 2023
Georgia head coach Smart signed a contract extension ahead of the 2022 college football season that will pay him $112.5 million over 10 years. That makes him one of the highest-paid coaches in all of college football. Remarkably, that figure doesn’t include bonuses.
For the 2023 college football season, Smart is set to earn a salary of $10.5 million. Again, that doesn’t include any performance enhancements, such as the $300,000 bonus received for winning the 2022 SEC Championship Game. The Georgia head coach earns a basic salary of $600,000 each year, with the rest made up of media and equipment compensation.
For the 2023 season, Smart tops up his basic salary with $6.4 million in media compensation — a common element of coaching contracts that compensates the Georgia head coach for press conference appearances, any regular radio shows, and any time that he spends on TV shows. Those include Bulldog Hotline, Game Day Radio, and Kirby Smart All Access, amongst a plethora of regular spots.
Finally, Smart’s 2023 salary includes $3.5 million for equipment endorsements. The Georgia football program has an equipment and apparel deal with Nike that runs through June 2024. Although Smart’s salary features an ever-increasing amount tied to that equipment deal, his remuneration will remain the same even if the program inks a new deal with another partner.
Smart’s Net Worth
How much did winning a national championship for the first time in 40 years mean to the Georgia football program? They say money can’t buy you happiness, but the seventh-year head coach made everyone in Athens, Georgia, ecstatic. In doing so, Smart received a salary increase, making him one of the highest-paid coaches in college football. If money can’t buy you happiness, making others happy can earn you a substantial amount.
$112.5 million dollars to be precise. However, that’s not the sum total of the value of Smart’s net worth. Yes, his salary averages out to $11.25 million over the lifetime of the deal, starting with $10.25 million in 2022 and culminating in an eye-opening $12.25 million in 2031, the final year of his current contract that was extended in January 2022.
However, Smart has the ability to bolster his salary with a series of on-field-related performance bonuses. For example, when Georgia beat LSU 50-30 in the 2022 SEC Championship Game, the Bulldogs’ head coach netted an additional $300,000. Even if they’d have lost to the Tigers in Atlanta, the makeup of Smart’s contract means that he’d already earned a $100,000 bonus just for getting the Bulldogs to the SEC title game.
As the number one ranked team in the nation following the 2022 college football regular season, Smart boosted his salary by $500,000 for getting Georgia into the College Football Playoff. If they repeat as national champions, an unprecedented feat in the CFP era, that figure rises to $1,000,000. In total, Smart can earn up to $1.3 million in additional bonuses on top of his yearly salary.
