UGA's Josh Brooks wants to bring this NBA salary rule to college sports

UGA athletic director Josh Brooks has long negotiated with coaches and their agents. Like the rest of the college sports world, he has become an expert in player negotiations.

“Pure Athlete,” a youth sports platform co-founded by former Atlanta Braves outfielder Jeff Francoeur, recently featured Josh Brooks.

Brooks told Francoeur and his cohosts, Britt Lee and Brad Williams, that the UGA athletic department consulted the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons, and other pro teams early in the NIL era. The department sought to learn how professional teams manage rosters and handle contract negotiations.

“One of the biggest things was becoming more pragmatic and trying to remove the emotion from the decision-making process,” Brooks said about his early NIL lessons. “In college athletics, it is so emotionally tied to: ‘This guy is a Georgia guy. This woman is a Georgia woman.’ They grew up here. There is a connection to the fanbase.”

Brooks says metrics, data, and value now drive Georgia’s decision-making process. This shift forces college teams to manage rosters with less emotion.

This logic also fuels Brooks’ push for a structure similar to NBA Bird Rights in college sports. In the NBA, the “Bird Rights” exception permits teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents. This allows players to earn more money without the team’s total payroll exceeding the cap.

“For every year you are at a place, there should be a percentage that is lopped off, not hitting the cap, so you can reward continuity,” Brooks said. “You can play individuals more for being loyal and staying at a place.”

Josh Brooks is among some of the nation’s top college sports voices pushing for some level of Bird Rights. In March, UCLA men’s basketball coach Mick Cronin said Bird Rights would help improve graduation rates. The Big Ten has been reportedly exploring the idea.

Some of Georgia’s most recognizable names are players who have been on campus for three and four years. Kirby Smart has said multiple times that Georgia’s strategy in NIL is slanted more strongly to roster retention. Brooks says that approach also helps fans.

“They love to see guys like Drew Bobo, Lawson Luckie, or Gunner Stockton that have been in the program for four years,” Brooks said. “That is really special on many fronts.”