College Coaches: Ever Enough Money?

With the sudden departure of Florida head coach Steve Spurrier to the Washington Redskins, the vaults at many D-I programs have been broken into once again and the greenbacks are freely flowing. The question is: Is there any end in sight?

Chances are, when you turn your television on tonight after a hard day’s work, you’ll see a political pundit on CNN discussing the economic uncertainties facing this nation. When you do, just chuckle, click over to CNN/SI to hear who’s the latest college head coach to receive a lucrative new contract or salary increase. It’ll put things in perspective Maybe the 20 or more head coaches in college football today that earn in excess of one million dollars annually will form a co-op to bail out Enron.

It All Began With Jackie

Twenty years ago, Texas A&M sent the college football world reeling by luring Jackie Sherrill away from Pitt with a five year contact in the neighborhood of one million dollars. The howling and yowling from college presidents, professors and facility members could be heard around the country and, twenty years later, they’re still being heard from. But today, like yesterday, those complaints mainly fall on deaf ears.

How Can They Continue to Pay?

Contrary to what you may believe, D-I programs do not operate on unlimited budgets. You may be surprised on how many ‘big-time’ programs just scrape by financially. How then, you say, can they justify today’s astronomical salaries for their football programs? In 2002, football drives most athletic departments, especially in the wake of Title XII, where funding for women’s sports has to be compensated for also. The creation of the super conferences also allowed for the creation of the huge television packages that you see today. Years ago, when the NCAA controlled the television rights, schools could not appear more than five times in the regular season over a two-year period. Now, depending on the success of the program, a school can be featured almost every week and there’s even a minimum appearance for those programs that are not as successful. This equates to huge revenue $$ for each school, not to mention bowl payouts derived from television revenues after the regular season.

”It’s The Recruiting Stupid”

Some of today’s head coaches are better businessmen than they are coaches. They can quote the salaries of all their fellow cronies and give you their school’s payout of the visiting opponent they’re facing that particular week. They can also quote you the number of season tickets and luxury boxes that have been purchased along with the amount funded the program by deep-pocketed donors they so cozily snuggle up to. There are some head coaches today that have not won a conference, let alone a national championship, yet command some of the biggest salaries in all of college football. How can that be?

Give these coaches credit. The ones that haven’t won it all on the field have discovered a savior in recruiting—and they’re extremely good at it. They’ve discovered, in college football, recruiting is the basis for all wealth. This time of year, you will see college football fanatics from all over the country just as excited (if not more so) about their team’s chances of winning the ‘mythical’ national recruiting championship as winning the real one. The point can be argued, but some believe the excitement and anticipation created by great recruiting classes generate as much revenue in preseason ticket sales, renewing options on preferred seating, luxury suites, big donor dollars, summer camps, etc. as from last year’s won-lost record. It’s not what you are--it’s what you can be in the future. Recruiting is a game within THE GAME and smart coaches have learned to capitalize on it.

Conclusion

No one knows where future coaching salaries are headed. Existing antitrust laws prohibited salary caps that were placed on assistant coaches by the NCAA in the past. But the answer could be forthcoming. Television ratings and the subsequent revenues for college football are down from what they’ve been in the past. ABC passed on some games in their Big XII package in the wake of September 11th and the overall down turn in the economy. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues or if they’ll be a turnaround in 2002. Supply-and-demand continues to dictate revenues in all aspects of business. And don’t be deceived, 2002 College Football is BIG BUSINESS.

So, when you’re sitting in your $50 seat, secured by your $5000 donation to the school’s foundation, while you’re biting into your $7 hotdog and sipping your $5 soda, ask yourself this question, “Am I really getting my money’s worth?” Only time will tell.

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Check out HeartlandRecruiting.com to get further inside recruiting in the Big 12.