Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Urban Meyer was hired...

...yesterday to be Ohio State's next head football coach. From the Times (my emphasis):

[Meyer's] contract includes $4 million in base salary, bonuses — for everything from players’ graduation rates to playing in a national championship, up to $700,000 annually — and lump payments in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The deal is worth more than three times the $1.32 million that the university’s president, E. Gordon Gee, made in 2010, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
___

Contracts for college football coaches have increased at a similarly rapid pace. If Mr. Meyer reaches his benchmarks for bonuses, he will be among — and may even surpass — the upper echelon of college football coaches: Mack Brown at Texas, Nick Saban at Alabama, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Les Miles at Louisiana State.

An analysis this month by USA Today found the average salary for a major college head coach jumped nearly 55 percent in the past six seasons, to $1.47 million this year from $950,000 in 2006. This season, according to the analysis, 64 coaches made at least $1 million, with three over $4 million and Mr. Brown of Texas over $5 million, making him the highest-compensated coach.

The article doesn't say, but I assume the players' salaries will all remain the same: zero.

2 comments:

Ed Crotty said...

no one wants a coach that is below average - so everyone needs to pay theri coach an above average salary. That's how you get 55 percent in 6 years ( 6 years with very low inflation ). The same applies to CEO's......

mtracy said...

Agreed.

The article goes on to quote a professor of sports administration (is that an academic discipline?) as saying:

Soon, a coach is going to make $10 million a year.

Is there any doubt that these are football programs with universities attached to them?