College coaching salaries

[gregl]

I do get sarcastic joy from the new contracts. Use of the U’s private jet is now written into the contract? Saves it from becoming a scandal later, I guess.

I chuckled at that perk too. Wealthy donors have loaned private aircraft to college coaches for years. I've flown more than a few well-known coaches on recruiting and personal trips. I always made sure the manifests were very accurate just in case the documentation was needed at a later date...

Greg

[rwsaunders]

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying the solution, but I’ve often wondered when the masses will call out the NFL and NBA to subsidize what are essentially their farm systems?

[echappist]

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying the solution, but I’ve often wondered when the masses will call out the NFL and NBA to subsidize what are essentially their farm systems?

Too complacent and addled on the product pandered to do anything about it. For every person who holds an opinion similar to what you and I hold, at least one other would hold an opposing view.

You live in Pittsburgh. I don’t have to remind you about the most depraved act that was allowed to fester, which took place under the aegis of big time college sports. When that horribly sordid series of events finally came to light, the rabidity of some of the faithful was something to behold. Lives of children were ruined, but all the rabid fans cared about were 12 football matches each autumn.

The script was lost long ago...

[rwsaunders]

"Joe knew" as the saying goes (for 13 years) and the Sandusky case, beyond taking its toll on those kids, their families and the whistleblowers, has cost the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania several hundred million dollars.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/02/2...paterno-family

[gt6267a]

1) Pay the players a real salary for the job they are doing.

2) Either expect identical academic performance from the players as regular students or simply cease mandating academics or other requirements. Have a football team if you want. Maybe make all the non academic players part of the staff somehow. Its still a team made up of people affiliated with the school, but let's drop the academic silliness.

3) Cease all private donations to sporting programs. Let them acquire funding via normal legit processes. TV Rights, apparel, ticket sales, etc, are fine. The number of old men donating to schools as some weird emotional tie to their youth, its almost mean to the alumni. Alumni traveling with the team etc etc. Its like gambling, video games, and other addictive / fantasizing activities. Keeping the kids poor means they suck up to the Alumni. Its a cycle that is kind of sick for everyone involved. Pay the players and break the cycle.

[spopepro]

Every day I am amazed at the foresight of University of Chicago and president Hutchins who seemingly understood what would happen back in 1939-45.

[beeatnik]

Chip Kelly earning more than Gavin Newsom gives me faith in the future of my state.

[Tom]

"Earning"?

Paid.

[Doug Fattic]

I live just a few miles north of Notre Dame stadium. I'm a casual fan that that watches their games on TV for entertainment but doesn't really care how well they do. Kelly's departure from ND caught everyone by surprise. There is something about giving him obscene amounts of money to leave doesn't seem right on many levels. First of all he leaves the team with a chance to play in a national championship game with less of a chance (they are 11 and 1 and been dominate their last few games). It seems like loyalty to his recruits and other coaches isn't a concern if you are paid enough to leave. Something is wrong here.

Notre Dame was limiting to him because athletes actually have to meet academic standards. I'm betting LSU doesn't care. I'm modest friends with the XC coach and one time he was telling me that one of the best high school runners wanted to go to ND but couldn't get by their academic entry standards. He was bummed about that.

[72gmc]

I see Brian Kelly as a football version of John Calipari—a professional who is acting like one. School loyalty is a tool he uses to get paid, and LSU boosters are showing a lot of it.

[Mabouya]

Granted, there's lot of hypocrisy at play when we have "institutions of higher learning" where highest paid individual is the head football or basketball coach.

However, having issues with their salaries is similar to complaining about how much star professional athletes are payed (yeah, I'm looking at you, Mike Trout) - it's merely a reflection of what's important to society.

Bonus image. I bet this is what Messi's saying: "Can you believe how much they're paying us to do this!"

[beeatnik]

"Earning"?

Paid.

UCLA, 8-4 this season. Undefeated November for the first time since 1998.

[zachateseverything]

"Joe knew" as the saying goes (for 13 years) and the Sandusky case, beyond taking its toll on those kids, their families and the whistleblowers, has cost the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania several hundred million dollars.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/02/2...paterno-family

It cost the university several hundred million dollars, not the commonwealth. Penn State is a state affiliated school but not a fully public state school. They get about 10% of their general fund from the PA state legislature but the state doesn't own them outright or take on the same level of liability they would with say Bloomsburg or IUP. They're also one of those 20 or so schools that actually make money from athletics. Athletic revenue in a given year is about 2/3rds of the value of the state appropriation. the big ten tv contract alone is about 10% of it.

The responses to the Sandusky scandal have been beyond stupid from all sides though. Had PSU officials notified the police about Sandusky the second they got a whiff of there being an issue (or even after Mike McQuerry saw that shower scene) it would have been a scandal for about a week and blown over. Ten years later no one will be mentioning the similar scandals at Michigan State, Ohio State, or Michigan. Curly, Schultz, Spannier, and Paterno were morons that didn't do their basic duty. It's got to be one of the worst examples of risk management I've ever seen.

But then the pitchfork crowd really wants to take it to the University and Joe Paterno in particular and that's short sighted too. Sandusky was actually acquitted of the only charge to allegedly have happened on campus. The guy was a creep and for sure diddling kids for decades, but all of the actual charges happened when he was a retired ex-employee with some notoriety that still had access to facilities. No body that ever brings this up talks about the second mile (which Sandusky clearly started to get access to at risk youths), the employees that worked for the charity (a children's organization without any kind of two-deep leadership policy being in place!), or the politicians that happily showed up for photo ops.

then there are the staunch defenders. Students rioting after a coach is fired. God damn. I hate everyone.

I think the only thing that I've learned from this is that football coaches and athletic department admins are fundamentally broken people and shouldn't be trusted with anything beyond sports.

[Tom]

Messi's asking Ronaldo if he knows a good tax advisor.

[72gmc]

^^^ Yes, that does seem to be a weakness in Messi's game.

[beeatnik]

Notre Dame was limiting to him because athletes actually have to meet academic standards. I'm betting LSU doesn't care. I'm modest friends with the XC coach and one time he was telling me that one of the best high school runners wanted to go to ND but couldn't get by their academic entry standards. He was bummed about that.

That was an "issue" at UCLA before the program began to hire prominent coaches. Not quite an excuse but during Karl Dorrell's challenging tenure (now the coach at Colorado) UCLA was the 2nd (3rd maybe) most selective or academically demanding program in the FBS in terms of standards of admission.

[bcm119]

then there are the staunch defenders. Students rioting after a coach is fired. God damn. I hate everyone.

....

As a PSU alum, it was sickening to hear the defenders. The whole football worship culture there bothered me in undergrad, but it's taken on an entirely new level of darkness now.

[caleb]

I don't think argument holds. A CEO of a company with $140mm in annual revenue and no profit, is not being paid $10,000,000. I think what you will find is in actuality, the CEO pay is a smaller % of annual revenue.

Spot on.

And, just to make the math a little tougher, football programs are not stand-alone legal entities.

Under Title XI, the football roster must be matched with recruiting spots for women, likely in non-revenue sports.

So the costs of the football program are really its costs, plus the costs of the programs and scholarships for another 80+ roster spots. Maybe we can spitball those costs at $40m for another couple non-revenue sports and 80 scholarships?

So now the coach is getting 10% (10m/100m) of the total football revenue as a personal check.

I would be shocked to see the CEO of a publicly traded company taking home 10% of revenues as personal compensation.

P.S. This is a nonprofit philanthropic organization.

[j44ke]

A pretty good overview from Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbe...h=76a64c4052c1