Pro coaches dont have to recruit their own players either. If somebody gets hurt the team GM can go hire another player. College football is a coaches game.
Nobody has said FAU should lose money on football. They cant afford it. Just have the 60 best teams that all can make $$$ in one league. Rest can play lower cost version or soccer.
@bluebayou - If Texas only had $1M in salary vs. $13.5M…nobody would come to the games, the athletic department would fold, and nobody would want to go to UT?
FWIW - in 2016, when UT went 5-7, was met with an increase in attendance of 9%. Maybe they should lose more?
The market decides the salary of coaches, just as it does for CEO’s, computer programmers, NBA players, television reporters, nurses, teachers and the like.
But again, you miss the point (and your example does not help your pov). Texas, like Alabama, is one of a handful of athletic departments that makes a profit. (Actually, a rather large profit, so cutting the coache’s salary it not material.) That money arises from the sports teams. Might UT make as much money with a coach costing only $1m a year? Perhaps, but not likely. Regardless, even if they did hire and up-and-comer for $1m/yr, that guy would be gone after a few years of success. Or, with no success, attendance would drop, as would TV ratings, and the coach would be fired.
But, why do you care? The money paid to coaches is just available for tuition reduction for the general student population. (Note, the Athletic Department does provide scholarships to the student athletes.)
But Saban isn’t the most overpaid guy in college sports.
The numbers for Coach K of Duke hoops are even more of a complete joke. A non-owner employee running a $27 million business makes $9.7 million annually!!
“Duke University’s Mike Krzyzewski – also known as Coach K – is the most expensive piece of coaching talent on the courts. His total estimated pay last year was $9,682,032, far outstripping the $1.1 million that university president Richard Brodhead received. Given that the basketball program brought in $27 million in revenue with $14.2 million reportedly in expenses, that’s a gross profit of $12.8 million, based on numbers from the 2013-2014 academic year.”
Highest paid NBA coach is Greg Popovich of the Spurs. $11 million a year; Spur’s annual revenue is $187M. Next is Doc Rivers of the Clippers. $10 million a year; team revenue is $185M.
Coach K gets $9.7 million on $27 million.
In the total amount of money coaches get paid each year, there are items like deferred compensation, retention payments, shoe contracts, sports camps and other endorsements.
The fallacy of the original argument is that you are assuming that if coaches were paid less that more money would be available for academics. Just because alumni donate to the athletic foundations does not mean that they are going to donate to the academic scholarship funds.
The explanation is pretty simple economically. Here’s an excerpt from a Stanford economist’s testimony from the Ed Obannon case:
“Eliminating competition for student-athletes transfers money to coaches that otherwise would go to student-athletes. As long as revenues from basketball and football continue to grow, rising salaries for coaches will absorb much of this growth, as has been the case for the last two decades.”
Basically, the college coaches get paid so much because the players don’t.
What baffles me, though, is why Duke or Bama doesn’t require the cash cow teams to pay a chunk of their profits over the university (as the team owner). Instead, they let the athletic dept keep all the money and overpay the football and hoops coaches and the AD, so long as they also pay for the lacrosse and XC teams (which are not that expensive).
An interesting 2015 article about the economic impact of UT athletics on the community:
http://www.texassports.com/news/2015/9/8/GEN_0908154322.aspx
Another good article from 2016: http://247sports.com/Bolt/Report-10-athletic-departments-gave-more-money-to-academics-43162535
Texas transferred the most to education - $37.1 million. Got back $0 in subsidies.
Duke and Alabama aren’t on the list of 10 athletic departments that gave money back.
Maine – that is the way the math on these cash cow programs should be looked at.
Although even Texas’ contribution to the academic side of the house is still pretty meager. The $37 million is the total for four years. They easily could be sending $40 milion each year over to academics.
They take in $190 million per year. But somehow they manage to find a way to spend like $175 million. A $10 million coach is the college version of the famous $400 Pentagon hammer.
They spend the money because they have it left over after (i) not paying the players, and (ii) not paying the academic side either. (ii) is really the head scratcher for me. If you are going to own a big time profitable business, why do you let your employees keep the lion’s share of the profits for themselves?
They don’t even have the common sense to limit their exposure for fired coaches, who replace their income elsewhere and make even more money. UT could have saved $7M this year by hiring a mediocre lawyer.
@ Maine…which of the stats you mention in post #48 changes if they pay the football coach $2M instead of $5M? Everyone involved throws off red herring stats to justify a system that rewards 15 people on a campus at the risk of thousands having to support their lifestyles and self-serving decisions
I am baffled by @EyeVeee and @northwesty comments. All this discussion of coach revenue vs total revenue is irrelevant. These people are paid what they are worth on the open market.
Saban and Coach K are proven winners. They are the brand behind Alabama and Duke, which are currently getting the benefits of their talents.
“Eliminating competition for student-athletes transfers money to coaches that otherwise would go to student-athletes. As long as revenues from basketball and football continue to grow, rising salaries for coaches will absorb much of this growth, as has been the case for the last two decades.”
Only for the handful of top coaches. Much of the so-called profit from two sports goes to pay for all the money losing sports. If a player has a bad year does he get a pay cut next year? What about that guy who only plays in garbage time? Colleges have no trouble getting players for what they can pay. Interns dont make Managing Director money either.
The Alabama athletic department returned $9mill to the University general fund a couple of years ago…
The schools who make money on sports are a minority. Majority of schools lose money. How about Rutgers? The school lost tons of money on its football program and still pays its coach in millions.
That is correct. But that is not the topic of this thread. And, more importantly, while the total athletic departments may lose money, that does not mean that D1 football does. Don’t forget, the two big revenue sports (football and mens’ b’ball) help support all other sports, including every woman’s sport. Cut football, and other sports go as well.
“These people are paid what they are worth on the open market.”
But look at the market they are in.
Saban has coached in the NFL and Coach K has flirted with going to the NBA. In both cases, they’d likely make less in the pros (or maybe the same) even though the pro teams generate way way way more money than their college teams do.
The argument for the high college salaries is typically that it is a market/business and they get paid because their teams bring in so much money. If that were so, how could it be that they’d get paid MORE for coaching teams that generate LESS money?
Coach K is particularly ridiculous. His salary alone consumes 36% of all the cash that Duke basketball generates. No pro coach is compensated in that same galaxy. It is only possibly for Duke to pay that because (unlike the pros) (i) the players get paid way under their market value (per NCAA mandate) and (ii) the team owner lets its employee keep control of all the profits.
That’s a really weird definition of an “open” market.
@bluebayou - your argument isn’t true. Sports wouldn’t go away, they just wouldn’t have the foolish expenses created by football and basketball. The Boston College women’s soccer team, fencing team, lacrosse team, golf team, and whatever other sport you like wouldn’t play Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Miami, Florida State, Wake Forest, Duke and North Carolina. Football and Basketball “support” the other sports because they have forced them to have completely ridiculous conference alignments, all driven by the money that starts the cycle.
I think college sports are great. I was a Big 10 scholarship athlete. I just think the financials and ESPN have the tail wagging the dog. My wife used to work a summer job to pay for college…something that’s now impossible. Times change, and as a country, I feel we need to focus every cent possible on the scholarly aspects of higher education and stop focusing so much on bigger and better sports facilities and salaries.
I appreciate the “market force” argument for salaries, but every football program in the country would have a coach if we limited the salary to $500k. We would still have a national champion…a BCS…the exact same athletes. Those who are making all the money (football / basketball coaches and AD’s) keep the wheel spinning by stirring up “school pride” and scaring anyone that will listen that without “that” coach, we’ll be losers. Nearly every school has losers as the result of their athletic department’s excessive spending…we used to call them students.
Somebody needs to retake economics.