To grow athletic funds in NIL era, Georgia Southern gets creative — and country
No huddle: How Georgia Southern football navigates the fast-changing competitive landscape
College sports is fast becoming professionalized. Star quarterbacks and pass rushers now attract seven-figure paychecks through revenue-sharing deals with their schools. Players in search of better compensation or playing time can now switch teams through a quasi-free agency process known as the transfer portal. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will explore how Georgia schools at various competition levels are navigating this changing landscape in this periodic series.
STATESBORO ― The RV traffic is heavy outside the Georgia Southern University conference center on this November Friday, but then it is eve of an Eagle football game. The team is struggling, with a losing record and no mathematical chance at a league title, yet the diehards come for the weekend nonetheless.
Inside the building, about 200 other Georgia Southern fans gather in a ballroom where linen-covered tables surround a performance stage. They are guests at a combination dinner-concert called In The Round put on by the Eagle Nation Fund, formed to compensate athletes in this new pay-for-play era of college sports.
After dining — a choice of short ribs, chicken or salmon — attendees will enjoy an intimate acoustic jam session performed by eight country music artists. The show lasts nearly two hours, the musicians mesmerizing from just a few feet away. Hit-makers Tigirlily Gold, Tyler Farr, Corey Smith and Cole Goodwin sing of love and heartache, fishing and drinking, and innocence lost.
“This event really resonates,” said Chris Davis, Georgia Southern’s athletic director. “It feels like a private concert.”
In The Round is the most exclusive event on the Eagle Nation Fund calendar — and a cornerstone of Georgia Southern’s strategy to competing in college sports’ changing landscape. Court actions in recent years have led to the legalization of paying players, and the nation’s highest-profile colleges and universities are raising tens of millions annually for compensation.
Georgia Southern, along with its peers in a competition tier known as the Group of Five, lacks the media rights revenue and deep-pocketed donors of those blue-blood schools. Fundraising is trending up — the Georgia Southern Athletic Foundation set a record for the third consecutive year in fiscal year 2025 — but where the University of Georgia will pay athletes a combined $20.5 million this academic year, Georgia Southern is on track to award no more than $1.5 million.
Davis aims to grow Georgia Southern’s pot by at least $1 million each year, led by Eagle Nation Fund expansion. The organization went from being a third-party fundraising arm to an in-house operation earlier this year following the latest change to the NCAA’s player compensation rules.
And Davis is leaning into one of the school’s strengths: access to celebrities, particularly country music stars who can headline concerts and other ticketed events.
Early adopter
Georgia Southern’s GATA Jam country music festival is In The Round for the masses. The concert is staged outdoors on the football team’s practice field, not in a ballroom, and draws 14,000-plus in boots, jeans and trucker caps.
Alum Cole Swindell headlined the inaugural GATA Jam in April 2024, and big-ticket colleagues Thomas Rhett and Riley Green have played the event as well. Georgia Southern was an early adopter when it came to concert fundraisers for player compensation, joining the University of North Carolina (Eric Church in August 2023), the University of Kentucky (John Legend in May 2024) and the University of Texas (Brooks & Dunn in May 2024).
Swindell and Luke Bryan, another Georgia Southern alum, have given the school credibility in Nashville circles. Recruiting their assistance was an early priority for the Eagle Nation Fund, which launched in 2023 as a name, image and likeness (NIL) collective led then by Georgia Southern booster Leonard Bevill and 15 friends.
The collective’s initial challenge, Bevill said, was and is “where other schools have whales, we have a lot of guppies.” Georgia Southern counts entrepreneurs and corporate executives among its donors, but there are no Cody Campbells, the oil billionaire who is almost single-handedly bankrolling Texas Tech athletics, or Jimmy Haslams, the gas station magnate involved with Tennessee.
Growing the donor base, both in number and wealth profile, is vital to sustainability. Leveraging what students and alums refer to as “Southern pride” over its Nashville connections is a strong foundation, Bevill said.
“We’re fortunate to be in a position where we can get speakers and entertainers who cost us a nominal amount, so your costs are fixed and you can generate good revenue,” Bevill said. “And those events can make a special place like Georgia Southern feel even more special.”
Whales vs. guppies
To this point, though, interest in the Eagle Nation Fund remains dependent on the names on the playbill.
Georgia Southern’s athletics fundraising chief, Terry Harvin, acknowledged as much at the football season Kickoff Dinner in August. The event featured Q-and-As with the coaches and a speech by Mack Brown, the legendary coach who won a national title at Texas.
As Harvin, a beloved former Eagle player and the color analyst on the radio team, welcomed the crowd to the dinner, he noted the number of tables — 40 — spread out across the floor of the school’s spacious basketball arena.
The Eagle Nation Fund’s aspiration, he said, is to pack the facility for future kickoff dinners.
Building that type of allegiance is a lift. Another ominous sign came later, when auction items fetched winning bids in the low four figures. One attendee noted he sees bigger action on prizes at his kid’s private elementary school’s auctions.
But Georgia Southern’s leaders aren’t deterred. Only about 3,500 of the school’s 162,000 living alumni give to athletics, and they are confident they can expand the reach and up the number seats at events, bids at auctions and revenues to bolster their teams.
“What I appreciate is the creativity and the innovation so that you don’t have donor fatigue,” football coach Clay Helton said. “Be proactive. Be inventive. Think outside the box. That’s what this group is doing.”
About the Author
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
