Win or lose, the coaches in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament will make $1.4 million on average this season, according to a USA TODAY analysis of contracts and other compensation documents.
By Howard Smith, US Presswire
Rick Pitino racked in bonuses this year that helped his salary reach $7.5 million for the 2010-11 season.
By Howard Smith, US Presswire
Rick Pitino racked in bonuses this year that helped his salary reach $7.5 million for the 2010-11 season.
But the average disguises a range among the 68 schools that could not be more pronounced. Louisville's Rick Pitino is making $7.5 million this season, dwarfing the $85,000 of Northern Colorado's B.J. Hill.
Coaches' pay ? for both football and men's basketball ? has continued to increase amid pay freezes and cutbacks on many campuses, prompting protests at some schools. At the same time, about a dozen athletic departments in Division I operate without university or student fee funding.
Among the 33 coaches whose pay USA TODAY has tracked the last two seasons, the average pay was up 11% to $1.7 million, not including bonuses averaging up to $390,000.
-
DATABASE: Salaries for the NCAA tourney coaches
-
BONUS TIME: Coaches' academic bonuses vary
-
WHAT SCHOOLS SPEND: College athletics finance database
Pitino's compensation ? nearly 90 times more than Hill's ? is boosted by a $3.6 million bonus for completing three years of his contract. If he holds out another three years, he'll get another $3.6 million bonus in 2013. And that doesn't include up to $575,000 he can earn every year for tournament wins and a high grade-point average among his players.
Hill earned an extra $5,000 for winning the Big Sky Conference tournament. His contract doesn't even envision NCAA tournament wins.
While Pitino's and Hill's teams lost in the second round, there is plenty of spread among the teams in this weekend's Final Four. Kentucky's John Calipari will make $3.9 million this year, with another $650,000 in tournament bonus money available. Virginia Commonwealth's Shaka Smart will make $424,000, with about $257,000 in possible tournament bonuses.
The differences don't stop there. Last year, Kentucky's basketball program spent nearly $12 million, according to financial reports the schools turn in to the NCAA. VCU's basketball program runs on a leaner $2.5 million and does not turn a profit. VCU, seeded 11th in its regional, is the third double-digit seed to reach the Final Four.
"One of the beauties of the tournament is you've got universities of enormously different size and profile. ? We've got some wide diversity," NCAA President Mark Emmert says. "We want to do everything we can to promote competitive equity, but, at the same time, we're not going to tell universities what they can or can't pay a coach any more than we tell them what they can or can't pay a university president or a physics professor."
Contributing: Steve Berkowitz, Steve Wieberg
Posted
No comments:
Post a Comment