How the salaries of the coaches and the Nile Bill affect university football
Dan Wolken breaks down the annual compensation for university football coaches to discuss wages and how the zero bill affects them.
Sports pulse
The next time you hear someone, whoever, university sports complain of a lack of income, laugh opposite.
They will make you believe these bad guys, gourmet players have diverted a sports world who has been loving faithful and faithful benefactors, and ransacked it for each dollar that it is.
If I had $ 1,000 for each time that a university football coach declared the current world of “unsustainable” university sports, I could pay the extension of the Luka Doncic contract.
And speaking of extension, this is where this story turns to the absurd. At the end of last week, Oregon decided to Extend the coach Dan Lanningwhich was seen for the last time on the large stage dragging 34-0 in the quarter -final of the university football playoffs – as a n ° 1 team of the country.
This represents nearly $ 11 million per more than six years for LANNING – and 65.4 million dollars guaranteed – which has lost too many importance matches as a chief coach.
I do not blame Lanning so that his agent gets everything he can from Oregon. I blame Oregon, and the other 69 Power Four schools which include the state of Oregon and the state of Washington, which claimed poverty since the NCAA in 2021 decided to open a movement box for zero and free – at the same time.
(To date, the most stupid moves in a long and long line of stupid NCAA movements).
I blame all 70 schools that – are you ready for this? -will earn around $ 7.4 billion during the year 2025-2026, and up to $ 10.5 billion by 2034-35, according to a declaration made last week in support of the house’s regulations of several billion dollars.
And I still cannot understand how to pay the players without pretending that the world is coming to an end.
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Without adding more games to a season that is already in competition with the NFL for television eyes. Without eating one of his own (RIP, PAC-12), and leaving two others (ACC, Big 12) scrambled for crumbs.
The NCAA and the lawyers representing players await the final approval of the regulations of the Chamber’s affairs – which would officially approve, in substance, for the game through Nile – of the judge of the American district court Claudia Wilken. It is not surprising that Wilken had an audience on April 7, which coincides with the National Final Four Championship match.
The very tournament that the NCAA earns on average $ 1.1 billion per year during an eight -year contract with CBS and Turner media rights partners.
You can’t invent this people.
The declaration filed last week by the economy expert Dan Rascher – which was the cruncher of the applicant’s figures in almost all the prosecution compared to the athletes against the association – admitted the exorbitant cash flow in the 70 power conference schools. But here is where it becomes a little delicate, so stay with me.
The pool of house players from the house (see: salary ceiling) is based on a percentage of eight sources of income, including, but without limiting itself, media rights, ticket sales and bowl games / qualifying series. However, the settlement figures are not based on all income from the sports department.
For example, Texas’s total operational sporting income for the 2024 fiscal year was $ 331.9 million, but its figure for the eight categories used for the pool calculation was $ 172.1 million. Calcinnati swimming pool is calculating $ 38.8 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, the total of the eight sources of income of the 70 schools of the power conference is grouped, and the players would receive a percentage of this income which should be between $ 20 and $ 23 million per school for the first year after the settlement. This number is guaranteed to increase by at least 4% in each of the two years.
The objective of equalizing the number of all schools is to prevent programs like Texas from spending more money on players than small programs like Cincinnati. Remember that the 20 to 23 million dollars are what schools are authorized to spend on players from all male and female programs for the use of their Nile – if they wish.
This brings us back to Lanning and all the other assistant coaches who have signed mega offers this offseason. Steve Sarkisian has obtained a salary increase to $ 10.8 million for this season, and Bill Belichick obtained $ 10 million a year to become North Carolina football coach.
Jim Knowles obtained $ 3.1 million per year to leave Ohio State and become the defensive coordinator of Penn State, a salary higher than 74 FBS chief coaches had had last season.
However, there you go, coaches and sports directors and conference commissioners complaining of an “unsustainable” environment in university athletics.
Imagine an association of 70 schools, which have gladly moved away from the rest of the university sports – with a combined budget of $ 7.4 billion for the academic year – making salaries of the players Le Boogeyman Financial.
Perhaps, just perhaps, stop increasing the debt service with “improvements in installations”. Or if you just have to have new stadiums and arenas and ball parks, and new independent football and basketball facilities because recruits just need this new bling, stop paying coaches so as not to train.
Stop paying millions to high school students who have never taken a snap of university football. Stop paying Directors General For a job that can (and should) be done by the head coach and the sports director.
Stop paying for a 40 staffor millions to millions Recruitment of budgets. Stop paying the coaches to take a helicopter For a high school match, he is therefore different from all the other coaches there – to impress a 17 -year -old child.
And university sports do not know why it is in this situation.
Lanning has a 3-4 sheet against Rival Washington and Oregon State, 1-1 in conference championship matches and 0-1 in CFP matches. And I just received $ 60 million – whatever happens in the following six seasons.
There is your unsustainable, everyone.
And it’s nothing to laugh.
Matt Hayes is the National Editor of National University Football for USA Today Sports Network. Follow him on x to @Matthayescfb.
(New information has been added to this story.)