Head Coaches salaries

[awbuzz]

Am I the only one who thinks that is an odd clause to add to any bill? Almost as though they were as usual after education and got the coaches by mistake -- yeah, like a history teacher makes $3 mil, though his or her value is greater -- and now can't figure out how to explain it. Well, they can't explain any of it for that matter. it is just odd.

Seriously though, fir most folks it is hard to justify "non profit" and million dollar plus salaries.

 

[Skeptic]

Seriously though, fir most folks it is hard to justify "non profit" and million dollar plus salaries.

No argument. It was not that long ago that the Red Cross was spending more money for salary for its political appointment head, all legal, and all off the radar as long as they could keep it there. It was Bob Dole's wife if I remember correctly. She had other qualifications but the salary was enormous, particularly for a non-profit dependent upon the charity of strangers. The Red Cross was a long time recovering from that.

 

[bke1984]

The issue is going to resolve itself...it's pretty simple, actually. As these salaries increase, so do the buyouts...but the schools aren't going to fire those guys and pay those buyouts. You think Texas A&M could afford Jimbo's buyout for a 10-year 75 Million contract and then go hire another coach with a similar contract? Hell no...

See the problem is that we assume the guys that get the big contracts are good coaches. When they aren't, said school will be stuck with a bad coach for 10 years. Once this happens a few times...and it will...the salaries will either come back down or the coaches will start signing shorter deals. Either way, it actually benefits the smaller schools in the sense that they will have more stability while the larger schools that want to pay 100 million for a coach will either be stuck with a bad coach or keep changing coaches every few years.

 

[RonJohn]

First, remove the incentives for using sports programs to make up the shortfalls in public financing.

Sports don't assist the schools with financing. At GT, the budget for the school was somewhere around $1.6-1.7 billion. The entire athletic budget was less than $80 million and had more expenses than revenue. Even the factories don't get close to the budgets of the schools.

 

[RonJohn]

You think Texas A&M could afford Jimbo's buyout for a 10-year 75 Million contract and then go hire another coach with a similar contract? Hell no...

Check Texas A&M's financials. If you add 2015 and 2016, Texas A&M had $140 million more in revenue than in expenses. They have enough money in the bank to pay Jimbo's buyout twice without asking for additional donations.

 

[TechPreacher]

Second, turn every football (and other major sport) program in the country into Div. 3. There is no reason to have athletic scholarships at the public expense at all. If the pros want to put together a minor league football program and winnow out prospects, then let them pay for it. Public colleges and universities will field teams and play ball. They will also, of course, find ways to give "academic" scholarships to good players; I'm not denying that. Still, all the needless - entertaining, but needless - hoopla that now accompanies college athletics will be relegated to the sidelines. It'll stile on TV, of course - Ivy League games are - and there will still be conferences and TV contracts and some of the rest of it; I think we would be surprised at how quickly the entertainment side would adapt, especially if the pros don't field minor league teams.

Now, admittedly, step 2 here might actually require federal intervention. But make no mistake: the day is coming when the playing field will become so tilted that there will be irresistible pressure on them to act. All we have to do is keep on doing what we are already doing.

There is a simpler solution that the NCAA can enact -- all scholarships stay on the books for 4 years.

If a football player flunks out, goes to jail, gets hurt, goes pro, graduates early, etc, before 4 years is up, that team will play with one less player for the remainder of the 4 year period.

For the one-and-done basketball players, that team will play 3 years with one less player.

This rule puts the burden on the programs and coaches to regulate themselves. They would have to decide if it's worth it to sign this 5* player who is a definite lock for the pros and will leave early.

At some point the field would level itself because the factories would be self-probating, by "losing" scholarships every year. Next year's crop of 5* players have to go somewhere, right? Well, there's no room at Alabama or Kentucky, so they are pushed down the food chain. Some schools will decide it's not worth it, so the kids looking for only a football degree will be left out.

Either talent will be more evenly distributed, or student athletes will once again be able to play college athletics without being pushed aside by not-yet-eligible pro athletes. Either way, college athletics improve, without involving the feds, and without adding more oversight burden on the NCAA.

 

[takethepoints]

Sports don't assist the schools with financing. At GT, the budget for the school was somewhere around $1.6-1.7 billion. The entire athletic budget was less than $80 million and had more expenses than revenue. Even the factories don't get close to the budgets of the schools.

You didn't read what I said very carefully. It isn't that colleges and universities loot the budgets of athletic programs; they don't. Instead, they use interest in major sports to scout out donors for other programs. Major sports advertising is also used to identify corporate sponsors and donors for academic programs. All of this is the result of shortfalls in public funding. The amount that US colleges and universities spend on ancillary programs to attract students (dorms, sports, etc.) and to attract outside funding is twice that of our nearest OECD rival, the UK. It is approximately 4X what universities and colleges spend in continental Europe. There's a reason for that and it is what is driving the problems with major college sports.

 

[RonJohn]

You didn't read what I said very carefully. It isn't that colleges and universities loot the budgets of athletic programs; they don't. Instead, they use interest in major sports to scout out donors for other programs. Major sports advertising is also used to identify corporate sponsors and donors for academic programs.

I would have to see evidence of that to believe it. I haven't looked, but I haven't seen any evidence that major academic sponsors were identified by the academic departments. I haven't seen any evidence that companies that invest in research at universities decided what university to use based on sports. The companies that place ads on campus, such as cloud based services, credit card companies, etc, do advertise on sports, but that isn't the reason to advertise on campus. I'm sure those companies advertise on campuses such as MIT that don't have large sports programs. They want to reach as many people as possible, sports or not.