On April 13, Ludacris performed for 13 minutes at Georgia’s spring game, and was paid $65,000 for it. His contract also included a pretty great rider, which you can read it full at the bottom of this post. It included condoms, juice boxes, and a couple of bottle of Ludacris’s own brand of cognac, and Georgia athletics would like you to know they’re very, very sorry. AD Greg McGarity apologized to the UGA athletics board of directors in a meeting yesterday.
I’ve begun to think that perhaps I’m in the wrong damned line of work. Perhaps I should have been a rap star. $65,000 for 13 minutes’ work? AND a concert rider that looks like a grocery list for the Apocalypse- if Def Leppard was providing the entertainment? Where do I sign up for that??
We proably shouldn’t blame Ludacris; he was just doing what he does…and the University of Georgia played along. I’d toss in something about how this seems a suspect use of tax dollars or Mom and Dad’s tuition money…but that seems redundant, don’tchathinK?
This sort of ludicrous (pardon the pun) frittering away of public funds isn’t the sort of thing the University of Georgia community (or Georgia’s taxpayers) should be expected to condone. Of course, it was for UGA’s spring football game, so perhaps the mobs armed with torches and pitchforks will turn the other cheek if they win an SEC championship this fall.
If this sort of poor fiscal judgment had been indulged by, say, UGA’s chemistry department, I suspect the weeping and gnashing of teeth (and the demands for heads to roll) would have been loud, furious, and immediate…and it should be. Greg McGarity needs to accept responsibility and fall on his sword yesterday. If he can’t see his way clear to doing that, he should be summarily fired. The people of Georgia deserve better. Or is this sort of fiscal irresponsibility they’ll tolerate if it leads to championships?
