4 ms·

Whoa. A college football coach is the highest paid california state employee? Seems like california is focused on the wrong things.

by sudonim 16y ago

drinian 16y ago
The justification is generally that these football programs pay for themselves with ticket sales, merchandising, and segregated fundraising. I know that at my private alma mater (Duke), Coach K makes many times the salary of President Brodhead and it's still a net positive income for the school. Whether that's a business that universities should be in is a question for another day.
rdouble 16y ago
This is the case in almost every state.
tedunangst 16y ago
Winning football teams fill stadiums (selling tickets), get better ESPN coverage (more money) and keep alums happy (bigger donations). That position probably turns a profit when it's all accounted for.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/101207_tuesday_morning_quarterback&sportCat=nfl http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/... "no college or university in the United States has an athletic department that is financially self-sustaining."
  - ericras 16y ago
    That may be true but it's not a direct rebuttal to the previous comment. Does Texas' $3M coach bring in an additional $2.9M+ per year compared to if Texas hired a coach for $100,000?
  - Anechoic 16y ago
    That doesn't disprove the statement. If may very well be that the football (or whatever) program turns a profit and the rest of the athletic department loses more than the profitable program makes.
  - tedunangst 16y ago
    http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_2010.pdf http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_201... BCS: "Between 50 and 60 percent of football and men's basketball programs have reported net generated revenues (surpluses) for each of the five years reported." Translation: football makes money, other sports lose money. FBS: "Only two percent of football programs reported net generated revenues." Translation: When your program sucks, your revenue sucks too. Also note that all 14 programs that made money overall were BCS teams.
jimboyoungblood 16y ago
The vast majority of his salary is not paid out of state funds. According to this, most of the compensation is provided by Nike: http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2010/12/3/1850306/thoughts-on-california-golden-bears-head-football-coach-jeff-tedfords http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2010/12/3/1850306/thoug...
larrykubin 16y ago
The same is true here in Texas. #1 is the head football coach at Texas (2.5 million) and #2 is the head basketball coach (just under 2 million). http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/ http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee... The highest paid professor is Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize winning physicist ($391,000).

Whoa. A college football coach is the highest paid california state employee? Seems like california is focused on the wrong things.

by sudonim 16y ago

Whoa. A college football coach is the highest paid california state employee? Seems like california is focused on the wrong things.

drinian 16y ago

The justification is generally that these football programs pay for themselves with ticket sales, merchandising, and segregated fundraising. I know that at my private alma mater (Duke), Coach K makes many times the salary of President Brodhead and it's still a net positive income for the school. Whether that's a business that universities should be in is a question for another day.

rdouble 16y ago

This is the case in almost every state.

tedunangst 16y ago

Winning football teams fill stadiums (selling tickets), get better ESPN coverage (more money) and keep alums happy (bigger donations). That position probably turns a profit when it's all accounted for.

ojbyrne 16y ago
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/101207_tuesday_morning_quarterback&sportCat=nfl http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/... "no college or university in the United States has an athletic department that is financially self-sustaining."
- ericras 16y ago
  That may be true but it's not a direct rebuttal to the previous comment. Does Texas' $3M coach bring in an additional $2.9M+ per year compared to if Texas hired a coach for $100,000?
- Anechoic 16y ago
  That doesn't disprove the statement. If may very well be that the football (or whatever) program turns a profit and the rest of the athletic department loses more than the profitable program makes.
- tedunangst 16y ago
  http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_2010.pdf http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_201... BCS: "Between 50 and 60 percent of football and men's basketball programs have reported net generated revenues (surpluses) for each of the five years reported." Translation: football makes money, other sports lose money. FBS: "Only two percent of football programs reported net generated revenues." Translation: When your program sucks, your revenue sucks too. Also note that all 14 programs that made money overall were BCS teams.

jimboyoungblood 16y ago

The vast majority of his salary is not paid out of state funds. According to this, most of the compensation is provided by Nike: http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2010/12/3/1850306/thoughts-on-california-golden-bears-head-football-coach-jeff-tedfords http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2010/12/3/1850306/thoug...

larrykubin 16y ago

The same is true here in Texas. #1 is the head football coach at Texas (2.5 million) and #2 is the head basketball coach (just under 2 million). http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/ http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee... The highest paid professor is Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize winning physicist ($391,000).