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.
