Do you know how many fanbases would love to be 1 win away from being a top 4 team every single year?
Now 12 (then 14) teams make the playoff so as long as they don’t get worse, they’ll likely get to host a playoff game in Beaver Stadium most years.
Franklin was in Columbus to play the buckeyes on Saturday. The night before, he charters a helicopter to fly him to a game to see a recruit…in Columbus. Here’s the [link.](https://highschool.si.com/news/2023/10/21/james-franklin-takes-helicopter-to-visit-penn-state-football-recruit)
3 of PA’s huge schools, Penn State, Pitt, and Temple (and Lincoln too, but they aren’t nearly the same size) are technically “state affiliated” and operate as public institutions but have enough internal operation differences that warrant them a separate categorization from the PASSHE state school system
IUP is a PASSHE school and the university’s president makes $450,000…!
From what I understand is highest paid public official in the state of Pennsylvania. Enrollment for IUP has declined nearly every year of his tenure. How and why is this even possible…?!
It’s probably the State-related system of how Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln Universities are run in Pennsylvania. They’re run like NPR, managed independently, but receive tax-dollar grants from the state. In return, they meet certain conditions, offer cheaper in-state tuition. But they get to be under far-less control than the colleges and universities run by the state, like Edinboro, or IUP, or Shippensburg. This state control over other schools is partially why my alma mater, Shepherd University, kicks PSAC ass in football, despite being the only school outside Pennsylvania. Go Rams! 🏈 🐏
I’ve enjoyed watching the annual basketball trip to the Poconos y’all make each winter for sure.
No comment on football (ESU - but they’re getting better!!!)
Maybe because Penn State isn’t actually a state school, like Ohio State or Maryland U? I believe it is considered a Land-Grant school and, although it is called Penn State, the staff and professors are not paid by the Commonwealth and tuition is tuition is very high compared to PA’s actual “State Universities.” (Shippensburg, Lock Haven, Slippery Rock, etc…)
Penn State is public land grant university just like Ohio State, Maryland, Texas AM, Michigan State and many others. The land grant universities are focused on engineering agriculture and military training.
The history of land grant universities is very cool. In the middle of the Civil War, Justin Smith Morrill thought we needed new schools focused on "the useful arts," i.e, agriculture and engineering. There wasn't much money for it, so the federal government granted federal land to the states to establish land-grant universities. They really boosted American technological know-how, and I believe they have a great deal to do with the rise of the U.S. as an industrial and technological behemoth. Later additions created black and Native American versions.
Yeah, but their meat processing facility isn’t (or at least wasn’t while I was in college) USDA inspected, so they can’t ship their meat across state lines. Texas Tech’s is USDA inspected.
TBH, even without being a land grant, and all the money and past privileges that’s provided, Tech has a better ag school. Makes sense with where it’s located. And that’s despite decades of A&M doing all it could politically to stop Tech from creating a much needed vet school.
I didn’t know a lot about land grant universities until my daughter went to Purdue. Heavy focus on engineering agriculture science vs IU Bloomington which is more liberal arts, pre law, business, ie typical colleges that dominated the northeast US.
Great that politicians long ago saw the need to have top research universities in engineering and agriculture. really the backbone of our country.
Penn State is considered a public land grant but in practice how it operates and receives funding makes it more accurately described as a state affiliated institution. PSU, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln are all Pa state-affiliated institutions that have spent the majority of their history operating differently than purely public schools. Penn State is closer to public than, say, Pitt is, as PSU was chartered by the state but received funding differently than future state schools. Pitt on the other hand really was private for the majority of its history
You might enjoy this mini writeup at the LoC: [https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/06/laurels-for-morrill/](https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/06/laurels-for-morrill/)
>Part of Morrill’s interest was economic: A better-educated populace of farmers would produce more, sell more, hire more and make the country more prosperous and secure.
The two levers that make an economy grow are productivity growth and population growth. That's it.
Education is a vital investment in long-term productivity growth. And here's the key: You only get that productivity growth if know-how is disseminated and applied. The "land grant" system was a supply-side subsidy to expand educational capacity \*and\* spread knowledge far and wide (via the extension service). And naturally, when quantity is very high, prices are really low.
The biggest mistake of the modern era was to eschew this supply-side approach and shift to a demand-side subsidy with grants and loans.
>The act also reflected a commitment to his rural constituents. “People tend to think about farmers as not professionals: It’s just something that people do,” Krowl said. “But with the land-grant colleges, agriculture and mechanical sciences became worthy fields of study – not something you just pick up along the way.”
It's also worth noting that the research performed at land grant universities not only made the US an agricultural powerhouse. Many discoveries (over decades) led to the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s, which increased global food production to such an extent that it has enabled us to feed our global population.
All the coaches aside the funniest part of this is that Nevada's highest paid public employee is the Med School plastic surgeon.
The state of Nevada knows what's paying their bills.
The biggest surprise IMO. They have two of the best 1-AA football programs in the US and ND also has one of the best hockey programs. States like that usually prioritize paying coaches more than politicians or academics.
This is super misleading. 90% of a coach’s pay comes from booster donations, very little actually comes from the state.
Most state governments actually have caps on salaries for employees. Anything beyond this has to come from different funding sources or be directly appropriated in state budgets.
*edit to add: you also have to remember that even a public university isn’t funded the same way a state agency is. 100% of their funding doesn’t come directly from the state treasury. It’s also funded through tuition, endowment profits, donations, research grants, etc. So it’s pretty hard to even say what portion of a coach’s salary even comes from public funds vs. other sources. It’s kind of why saying “your taxpayer dollars” is pointless, because the financing mechanisms of any large entity are very complex and difficult to separate out.
-if you can’t tell, I work in public sector finance
This makes sense…I always wondered why Jim Harbaugh’s public salary record shows “only” $655,000 at U of M, when his base salary alone that year was over $8 million.
Because Jim Harbaugh adds much more to the state economy as an individual than Whitmer does.
It’s an unpopular answer but it’s the factually correct answer.
tl;dr: TV contracts funded by TV ads funded by beer/car/medicine sales.
The school’s “affiliated organizations” pay the coaches and players (via name and likeness contracts) to remain competitive and part of a lucrative TV contract. The money for those TV contracts, in turn, comes from ads that consumers ultimately pay for in higher prices.
The football makes the University of Michigan more than $100 million a year. Plus Michigan won the Natty and kicked OSU ass for the last 3 years! Small price to pay to humble TTDS "That Team Down South" 😁😆
Once you get past your hatred for the idea a coach gets paid a lot and think, you'll find the value Michigan's head coach brings to not only the university is far greater than 650k.
Like it or not that football program brings in a lot more money than any other single thing that university does. Generally, you compensate people who bring in the most revenue to any organization the highest.
That may not sit well with you, but take that up with the public who would rather watch football than pay attention to obscure research.
If we're going to get into the economic weeds of how a D1 football team is funded, then we cannot ignore the fact that the school gives out up to 85 full ride scholarships worth about $50,000 each, and also does not need to pay the players.
So if you're going to say "well actually, only half a million of Dabo Swinney's $11 million contract comes from public funds," you have to remember that the other $10.5 million obtained through other funding sources is only going to the coach because public funds are subsidizing almost $5 million in funds to the team in just scholarships alone, to say nothing of the other tens of millions poured in for facilities and countless other expenses and the millions saved by not having to pay the players a salary.
Oh, and that half million base salary would keep most coaches on this map anyway.
A top football or basketball program can basically fund the entire athletic department. Add to that the economic impact on the school's town from a successful program. The school's popularity (and therefore enrollment) will benefit too.
https://www.al.com/news/2024/01/what-economic-impact-has-nick-saban-had-on-alabama-he-was-worth-more-than-1-billion.html
Saban was being paid tens of millions and he was still a steal.
I lived in Birmingham for a long time and my wife is from there. And you’re absolutely right.
The impact Saban had on the school and nearby cities can’t be measured. SO many out of state people went to Bama for school and made a life in Alabama.
The University of Colorado saw a huge spike in applications after Deion Sanders was hired (particularly among minorities - the number of Black applicants jumped 50%). The effect these coaches have is very tangible.
But you can still be the highest paid state employee. You just max out the legal amount the state pays. In a lot of states the coach does make the legal max. I don't know if this map is accounting for that, or the total salary, which is what you are referring to, and are absolutely correct about. Coach might get $500k from state through university directly but the rest of the $10m or whatever a year is booster money.
Yeah you can dump on college sports all you want but it's worth remembering how much it pays for itself (and then some?) with ticket sales, sponsorships and merchandise.
Purdue Athletics typically gives money to the school each year and pays out of state tuition for all its student athletes, regardless of in state status.
Acknowledging everything you wrote, it's still wild how atypical this whole scheme is for government employment. Imagine the head of DOT getting side checks from Peterbilt and large construction companies. I'm not even making a value judgement, just observing how the position of college football coach is a wild aberration in terms of government employment. Really universities and their staff in general.
This is not entirely for the State of Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin system is not block granted, it is a direct state agency and the legislature has full oversight of salaries and budgeting. Yes, the pool of money supporting the University employees can come from hard dollars (tuition and taxes), federal dollars (research grants) and other sources (fees, foundation, etc).
I think the map is highlighting the problem of athletic funding within the University system, not wasteful public spending.
Do you have a source for percent of D1 athletic departments that are self-funded? I’m pretty sure my university’s athletics is not fully self-funded (second highest paid football coach in the state I think), and I’ve heard before that most football programs are not profitable. Would be interested to read more on the economics of it.
I misspoke a touch. Athletic departments might be in the red but it has more to do with the fact that football and basketball aren't the only sports that must be funded. There are between 13-98 scholarships between those two sports. Each program must sponsor at least 12 others and must have an equal amount of men and women scholarships because of Title IX. Most of these programs are called non revenue for a reason. There are no tv contracts, or decent ticket packages, or merchandising deals for these sports. Football and basketball subsidize these. Your football coach is still not being paid by tax revenue.
That’s not true only 12% of athletics programs are profitable, even limiting to football and basketball that number is 57%
So at some smaller state schools, maybe not the D1 schools, that salary is definitely coming out of a taxpayers pocket
https://christopherlee.com/college-athletics-by-the-number/
They aren’t profitable because the football revenue is used to pay for other sports.. any D1 coach on that list is a part of a profitable program that doesn’t pay for the coach with tax money.
Again, limiting to football programs, over 1/3rd are still unprofitable
This has been a point of contention in New Jersey where after joining the big 10 and tripling income, primarily from new big 10 streaming rights, Rutgers athletics is still unprofitable primarily because scholarship costs and coaching costs have more than doubled in the last ten years
Football is not a benefit to all schools: https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/watchdog/2021/09/04/rutgers-athletics-265-m-in-debt-borrows-to-keep-pace-in-big-ten/8047865002/
And in fact where football used to make money, joining the big ten has made Rutgers football even more of a money loser than it was in 2014
Sure, but that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying the highest paid coach in the state is likely to come from one of the profitable sports programs
I went to Rutgers, and while Rutgers has tripled coaching salaries since joining the big 10, football related deficits have only increased
https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/watchdog/2021/09/04/rutgers-athletics-265-m-in-debt-borrows-to-keep-pace-in-big-ten/8047865002/
So no, the coaches and stuff do not always come or go to profitable sports programs
I don't believe these are accurate. The salaries for many of these coaches are often paid by the "Blank State University Athletics Corporation" which is separate from the state budget and allows the state to pay a pretty small portion of those salaries. The independent athletic corporation gets its income from sponsorships, conferences, tv deals, etc.
For example, Bill Self listed here as the highest paid person in KS has no part of his salary drawn on state funds, a fact explicitly listed on the KS Open Gov database that lists state salaries.
Agreed, CT is shown as having a women’s coach as the top earner but the men’s UConn coach is paid more than 10x more. It’s 400k for Auriemma vs. $5.35M for Hurley per season
The market at work. If you want a good basketball and/or football team at your state university, well, they are expensive.
People are paid by the market, not for the utility of what they do. Witness the Kardashians.
These aren't publicly funded jobs either. The money comes from ticket sales, tv deals and merchandising. Your precious tax dollars haven't paid for coaches in a long time. All these programs are self funded but the funds are distributed by the state after they are collected from the athletic departments.
Because of the institutions they represent, not the source of their paychecks. Dan Lanning in Oregon is getting his checks signed by the University of Oregon, yes, but the money they are using to pay him will mostly be coming from Nike in various forms (the corporation, individuals that work there and are alumni, Uncle Phil himself [this one can not be understated]).
Those football coaches aren’t publicly funded jobs.. your taxes don’t pay for them. They’re paid from the revenue that their program earns and by donations from boosters.
For the majority of programs, sports do not, in fact, bring in a lot of money.
Most collegiate athletics programs in the states operate at a deficit, requiring tapping into a university’s general fund, student fees, or state funding to make up the difference. This makes college more expensive, with virtually no benefit to the average student.
Football, and Basketball are the only two sports that turn a profit. Every other sport loses money
Also in many states it's illegal to tap into tuition without the knowledge of the public, look at James Madison who's under heat for this exact reason
Also college sports does put more prestige on schools like UConn, Villanova, Notre Dame, Michigan, and UNC.
Also with Title IX every college must put equal spending across men's and women's.
The schools on average would make more money if they cut athletics programs entirely since even most D1 programs lose money. I’d rather my tax dollars not subsidize sports
https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2020/11/20/do-college-sports-make-money/
The USA has more top universities, professors, students, and research output than any other country, by far.
Agree with the principle that scholls should spend more on education than athletics, which they do on average. This map is misleading, as others have said, since it's 1 outlier person making bank, while the sum total of educational staff, and bureaucracy, etc adds up way more.
Entertainment pays. If you have this take, you better also have a problem with the amount of cash that flows through music and movie industry. It’s fucking bogus.
It’s entertainment. If the football programs here spun off to be private, it wouldn’t change the amount professors are paid. All college athletics are is entertainment by students who go to that school.
So let’s get rid of sports, one of the things that allows a LOT of children free college.
Do you think most people on track scholarships are doing it so they can be professional runners one day??
Sports do a lot for a school. The University of Alabama benefited majorly academically from its success in football over the last 15 years. Also, this isn’t coming from the taxpayers.
Having spent a lot of time looking at state budgets, if this were, in fact, the metric used to pay state employees then the highest paid employees in every state would probably be affirmative litigation and consumer protection lawyers who often bring in hundreds of millions of dollars per attorney to their states. There are a lot of reasons, some good and some bad, why coaches are the highest paid employees in states, but quantifiable revenue generation is not chief among them.
The scarcity and competitiveness drives up the price. Sure those two professions bring in a lot of money for the state as well, but they’re are a lot more openings
There are a few reasons why college baseball isn’t nearly as popular as basketball or football.
First, baseball development is insanely rigorous. Even the best college player will end up spending *some* time in the minor leagues before they make it to MLB. Most major leaguers spent *at least* two years in the minors. So there is a much larger gap in overall talent between MLB & college baseball compared to other sports & there isn’t the added layer of expectations that the best players will be making an impact in pro games in the immediate future (although there are exceptions).
Second, in baseball high school players can get drafted into pro ball & go straight to the minors instead of playing college ball. So many of the best American high school players don’t play college baseball at all.
Lastly, baseball is a very international sport. Almost a third of MLB players come from Latin America alone. Not to mention the additional players from Japan & Korea. The vast majority of international players don’t play in college baseball. So again, the college game simply doesn’t have the level of relative talent that it does in basketball & football. The MLB game is just such a massive step up in skill that I find it makes watching college ball less compelling for many fans used to MLB.
That all being said, college baseball is still a rather popular thing. Just not on the level of college basketball or football.
InB4 the brigade of people going on about how college athletics programs are great because of all the money they bring in, as if the concentration of such wealth in the hands of a few is universally a good thing.
...Aaaand, I'm too late.
Massachusetts highest paid public employee is also a basketball coach, Fransisco Martin, UMass. His salary is $867,102, which double the salary of the medical school chancellor.
i'd be interested to know the source for the data used to generate this map? I feel like i say that a lot on this sub. It's an interesting map idea, but like many maps here it's hard to judge without knowing the validity of the source data.
What the FUCK is Illinois doing paying a college football coach more than any other employee?
What college program in that state justifies that? U of I’s perpetual 7-7 season?
Come on, I don’t think Americans that dumb. There is no way any state agrees to have the FOOTBALL COACH as the highest paid employee, must be bonuses or some shit
If hiring a great coach makes your football program a winner and brings in a $100 million a year to your school, I’d say you’d have to pretty dumb not fight for the chance to pay him $10 million a year to come to your school.
The thing is, there are thousands of public employees making bank in New York, most of them with titles like deputy assistant commissioner for subcontracting at this point nobody's paying attention to the title and we can just say she's tight with the governor.
Patronage jobs ain't dead.
It’s the most Minnesota thing ever to have a tie for the highest paid state employee.
I bet there’s some obscure law where there can’t be one single person who makes more than everybody else.
This dynamic is tangentially connected to the dynamic that nobody ever eats the last piece of anything at a group dinner or potluck.
It’s a passive-aggressive form of making sure nobody feels superior to everybody else.
If they are employees of Public universities like the university of Alabama yes. If they are an employee of private university like Notre Dame then no. It's misleading though as the salary for the coaches at public universities tend to be from boosters rather than the state itself
We love our coaches in Alabama… I bet our 4 top paid employees are coaches from the 4 football programs at University of Alabama, Auburn University, Troy University and University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). When Nick Saban retired after 2023 season- there was a deep grief in this state.
Does this surprise anyone? I am a little surprised about Rhode Island. And Florida…who is getting paid more than Norvell??? I also wonder if ND would have been football coach before Klieman went to K-State.
A few decades out of date. In California the highest paid state employees have long been the people in charge of CalPERS the state employee retirement fund.
This showcases some of the problems with the United States... 'public employees' who are involved with sports ball as the highest paid. These are your tax dollars folks. At least a few states have something of value like medical college deans, but still.
What’s the asterisk after “football coach” in PA for?
Because Penn State fans are constantly calling for James Franklin to be fired.
Lol I mean they're right to be upset but they're wrong. They aren't gettinf better than Franklin
Do you know how many fanbases would love to be 1 win away from being a top 4 team every single year? Now 12 (then 14) teams make the playoff so as long as they don’t get worse, they’ll likely get to host a playoff game in Beaver Stadium most years.
Franklin was in Columbus to play the buckeyes on Saturday. The night before, he charters a helicopter to fly him to a game to see a recruit…in Columbus. Here’s the [link.](https://highschool.si.com/news/2023/10/21/james-franklin-takes-helicopter-to-visit-penn-state-football-recruit)
3 of PA’s huge schools, Penn State, Pitt, and Temple (and Lincoln too, but they aren’t nearly the same size) are technically “state affiliated” and operate as public institutions but have enough internal operation differences that warrant them a separate categorization from the PASSHE state school system
IUP is a PASSHE school and the university’s president makes $450,000…! From what I understand is highest paid public official in the state of Pennsylvania. Enrollment for IUP has declined nearly every year of his tenure. How and why is this even possible…?!
It’s probably the State-related system of how Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln Universities are run in Pennsylvania. They’re run like NPR, managed independently, but receive tax-dollar grants from the state. In return, they meet certain conditions, offer cheaper in-state tuition. But they get to be under far-less control than the colleges and universities run by the state, like Edinboro, or IUP, or Shippensburg. This state control over other schools is partially why my alma mater, Shepherd University, kicks PSAC ass in football, despite being the only school outside Pennsylvania. Go Rams! 🏈 🐏
I’ve enjoyed watching the annual basketball trip to the Poconos y’all make each winter for sure. No comment on football (ESU - but they’re getting better!!!)
Joey "Fuck 'dem kids" Pats died?
Maybe because Penn State isn’t actually a state school, like Ohio State or Maryland U? I believe it is considered a Land-Grant school and, although it is called Penn State, the staff and professors are not paid by the Commonwealth and tuition is tuition is very high compared to PA’s actual “State Universities.” (Shippensburg, Lock Haven, Slippery Rock, etc…)
Penn State is public land grant university just like Ohio State, Maryland, Texas AM, Michigan State and many others. The land grant universities are focused on engineering agriculture and military training.
The history of land grant universities is very cool. In the middle of the Civil War, Justin Smith Morrill thought we needed new schools focused on "the useful arts," i.e, agriculture and engineering. There wasn't much money for it, so the federal government granted federal land to the states to establish land-grant universities. They really boosted American technological know-how, and I believe they have a great deal to do with the rise of the U.S. as an industrial and technological behemoth. Later additions created black and Native American versions.
Yes really incredible to have that foresight. Engineering and agriculture are the backbone of our country.
Thanks for the clarification. I was not aware that that was the case.
It’s pretty cool tbh. A&M even has a butchering course due to their ag roots.
Yeah, but their meat processing facility isn’t (or at least wasn’t while I was in college) USDA inspected, so they can’t ship their meat across state lines. Texas Tech’s is USDA inspected.
TBH, even without being a land grant, and all the money and past privileges that’s provided, Tech has a better ag school. Makes sense with where it’s located. And that’s despite decades of A&M doing all it could politically to stop Tech from creating a much needed vet school.
I didn’t know a lot about land grant universities until my daughter went to Purdue. Heavy focus on engineering agriculture science vs IU Bloomington which is more liberal arts, pre law, business, ie typical colleges that dominated the northeast US. Great that politicians long ago saw the need to have top research universities in engineering and agriculture. really the backbone of our country.
Penn State is considered a public land grant but in practice how it operates and receives funding makes it more accurately described as a state affiliated institution. PSU, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln are all Pa state-affiliated institutions that have spent the majority of their history operating differently than purely public schools. Penn State is closer to public than, say, Pitt is, as PSU was chartered by the state but received funding differently than future state schools. Pitt on the other hand really was private for the majority of its history
You might enjoy this mini writeup at the LoC: [https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/06/laurels-for-morrill/](https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/06/laurels-for-morrill/) >Part of Morrill’s interest was economic: A better-educated populace of farmers would produce more, sell more, hire more and make the country more prosperous and secure. The two levers that make an economy grow are productivity growth and population growth. That's it. Education is a vital investment in long-term productivity growth. And here's the key: You only get that productivity growth if know-how is disseminated and applied. The "land grant" system was a supply-side subsidy to expand educational capacity \*and\* spread knowledge far and wide (via the extension service). And naturally, when quantity is very high, prices are really low. The biggest mistake of the modern era was to eschew this supply-side approach and shift to a demand-side subsidy with grants and loans. >The act also reflected a commitment to his rural constituents. “People tend to think about farmers as not professionals: It’s just something that people do,” Krowl said. “But with the land-grant colleges, agriculture and mechanical sciences became worthy fields of study – not something you just pick up along the way.” It's also worth noting that the research performed at land grant universities not only made the US an agricultural powerhouse. Many discoveries (over decades) led to the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s, which increased global food production to such an extent that it has enabled us to feed our global population.
All the coaches aside the funniest part of this is that Nevada's highest paid public employee is the Med School plastic surgeon. The state of Nevada knows what's paying their bills.
Don't know about the bills but I know who's paying my state taxes. Thanks tourists!
The biggest surprise IMO. They have two of the best 1-AA football programs in the US and ND also has one of the best hockey programs. States like that usually prioritize paying coaches more than politicians or academics.
This is super misleading. 90% of a coach’s pay comes from booster donations, very little actually comes from the state. Most state governments actually have caps on salaries for employees. Anything beyond this has to come from different funding sources or be directly appropriated in state budgets. *edit to add: you also have to remember that even a public university isn’t funded the same way a state agency is. 100% of their funding doesn’t come directly from the state treasury. It’s also funded through tuition, endowment profits, donations, research grants, etc. So it’s pretty hard to even say what portion of a coach’s salary even comes from public funds vs. other sources. It’s kind of why saying “your taxpayer dollars” is pointless, because the financing mechanisms of any large entity are very complex and difficult to separate out. -if you can’t tell, I work in public sector finance
This makes sense…I always wondered why Jim Harbaugh’s public salary record shows “only” $655,000 at U of M, when his base salary alone that year was over $8 million.
Again why are we paying coaches $655K?? It should be halved and that half should go to scholarships.
Because Jim Harbaugh adds much more to the state economy as an individual than Whitmer does. It’s an unpopular answer but it’s the factually correct answer.
tl;dr: TV contracts funded by TV ads funded by beer/car/medicine sales. The school’s “affiliated organizations” pay the coaches and players (via name and likeness contracts) to remain competitive and part of a lucrative TV contract. The money for those TV contracts, in turn, comes from ads that consumers ultimately pay for in higher prices.
The football makes the University of Michigan more than $100 million a year. Plus Michigan won the Natty and kicked OSU ass for the last 3 years! Small price to pay to humble TTDS "That Team Down South" 😁😆
Just make sure you don’t have any trouble with the snap 😱
Once you get past your hatred for the idea a coach gets paid a lot and think, you'll find the value Michigan's head coach brings to not only the university is far greater than 650k.
Harbaugh just won a national championship and brought enormous value to the school. Ask what Texas A&M is doing
Like it or not that football program brings in a lot more money than any other single thing that university does. Generally, you compensate people who bring in the most revenue to any organization the highest. That may not sit well with you, but take that up with the public who would rather watch football than pay attention to obscure research.
Haha, "only". Could you imagine going to your family and saying, "I'm only making $655,000 this year".
There we go. Someone with common sense.
If we're going to get into the economic weeds of how a D1 football team is funded, then we cannot ignore the fact that the school gives out up to 85 full ride scholarships worth about $50,000 each, and also does not need to pay the players. So if you're going to say "well actually, only half a million of Dabo Swinney's $11 million contract comes from public funds," you have to remember that the other $10.5 million obtained through other funding sources is only going to the coach because public funds are subsidizing almost $5 million in funds to the team in just scholarships alone, to say nothing of the other tens of millions poured in for facilities and countless other expenses and the millions saved by not having to pay the players a salary. Oh, and that half million base salary would keep most coaches on this map anyway.
This guy gets it.
Classic MapPorn post with no source
They’re still typically the highest paid people even without that though.
But if a coach makes $10 million, 10% of that is still the highest salary in the state right?
A top football or basketball program can basically fund the entire athletic department. Add to that the economic impact on the school's town from a successful program. The school's popularity (and therefore enrollment) will benefit too. https://www.al.com/news/2024/01/what-economic-impact-has-nick-saban-had-on-alabama-he-was-worth-more-than-1-billion.html Saban was being paid tens of millions and he was still a steal.
I lived in Birmingham for a long time and my wife is from there. And you’re absolutely right. The impact Saban had on the school and nearby cities can’t be measured. SO many out of state people went to Bama for school and made a life in Alabama.
The University of Colorado saw a huge spike in applications after Deion Sanders was hired (particularly among minorities - the number of Black applicants jumped 50%). The effect these coaches have is very tangible.
But you can still be the highest paid state employee. You just max out the legal amount the state pays. In a lot of states the coach does make the legal max. I don't know if this map is accounting for that, or the total salary, which is what you are referring to, and are absolutely correct about. Coach might get $500k from state through university directly but the rest of the $10m or whatever a year is booster money.
You realize that 10% of most coaches salaries is still more than other public employees make, right?
Yeah you can dump on college sports all you want but it's worth remembering how much it pays for itself (and then some?) with ticket sales, sponsorships and merchandise.
Only 9 athletics programs are profitable overall More than a third of football programs are revenue negative
I’m also pretty sure the NCAA doesn’t allow sports revenue to be spent outside of athletics. Not positive on that though.
I don’t think so because I know LSU athletics gives millions back to the university every year
Purdue Athletics typically gives money to the school each year and pays out of state tuition for all its student athletes, regardless of in state status.
Don't coaches get paid the most when they win, even more so when they win state? If so I imagine that'd play a role
It should also employee. Not employees. It’s not like it’s multiple coaches making an insane multiple million dollar salary. It’s one.
Acknowledging everything you wrote, it's still wild how atypical this whole scheme is for government employment. Imagine the head of DOT getting side checks from Peterbilt and large construction companies. I'm not even making a value judgement, just observing how the position of college football coach is a wild aberration in terms of government employment. Really universities and their staff in general.
This is not entirely for the State of Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin system is not block granted, it is a direct state agency and the legislature has full oversight of salaries and budgeting. Yes, the pool of money supporting the University employees can come from hard dollars (tuition and taxes), federal dollars (research grants) and other sources (fees, foundation, etc). I think the map is highlighting the problem of athletic funding within the University system, not wasteful public spending.
Reposted for the 999th time. Get some new material.
Tbf it’s always funny reading the nerd rage.
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Do you have a source for percent of D1 athletic departments that are self-funded? I’m pretty sure my university’s athletics is not fully self-funded (second highest paid football coach in the state I think), and I’ve heard before that most football programs are not profitable. Would be interested to read more on the economics of it.
I misspoke a touch. Athletic departments might be in the red but it has more to do with the fact that football and basketball aren't the only sports that must be funded. There are between 13-98 scholarships between those two sports. Each program must sponsor at least 12 others and must have an equal amount of men and women scholarships because of Title IX. Most of these programs are called non revenue for a reason. There are no tv contracts, or decent ticket packages, or merchandising deals for these sports. Football and basketball subsidize these. Your football coach is still not being paid by tax revenue.
It’s a lie most programs lose money even at top schools https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2020/11/20/do-college-sports-make-money/
That’s not true only 12% of athletics programs are profitable, even limiting to football and basketball that number is 57% So at some smaller state schools, maybe not the D1 schools, that salary is definitely coming out of a taxpayers pocket https://christopherlee.com/college-athletics-by-the-number/
They aren’t profitable because the football revenue is used to pay for other sports.. any D1 coach on that list is a part of a profitable program that doesn’t pay for the coach with tax money.
Again, limiting to football programs, over 1/3rd are still unprofitable This has been a point of contention in New Jersey where after joining the big 10 and tripling income, primarily from new big 10 streaming rights, Rutgers athletics is still unprofitable primarily because scholarship costs and coaching costs have more than doubled in the last ten years Football is not a benefit to all schools: https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/watchdog/2021/09/04/rutgers-athletics-265-m-in-debt-borrows-to-keep-pace-in-big-ten/8047865002/ And in fact where football used to make money, joining the big ten has made Rutgers football even more of a money loser than it was in 2014
Sure, but that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying the highest paid coach in the state is likely to come from one of the profitable sports programs
I went to Rutgers, and while Rutgers has tripled coaching salaries since joining the big 10, football related deficits have only increased https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/watchdog/2021/09/04/rutgers-athletics-265-m-in-debt-borrows-to-keep-pace-in-big-ten/8047865002/ So no, the coaches and stuff do not always come or go to profitable sports programs
Rutgers also started in deep debt from being poorly run. But your football coach is fully paid by the B1G massive tv deal. J
I don't believe these are accurate. The salaries for many of these coaches are often paid by the "Blank State University Athletics Corporation" which is separate from the state budget and allows the state to pay a pretty small portion of those salaries. The independent athletic corporation gets its income from sponsorships, conferences, tv deals, etc. For example, Bill Self listed here as the highest paid person in KS has no part of his salary drawn on state funds, a fact explicitly listed on the KS Open Gov database that lists state salaries.
Agreed, CT is shown as having a women’s coach as the top earner but the men’s UConn coach is paid more than 10x more. It’s 400k for Auriemma vs. $5.35M for Hurley per season
The market at work. If you want a good basketball and/or football team at your state university, well, they are expensive. People are paid by the market, not for the utility of what they do. Witness the Kardashians.
Except these are publicly funded jobs, kardashians aren't paid for by taxes
These aren't publicly funded jobs either. The money comes from ticket sales, tv deals and merchandising. Your precious tax dollars haven't paid for coaches in a long time. All these programs are self funded but the funds are distributed by the state after they are collected from the athletic departments.
Then why are they considered public employees?
Because of the institutions they represent, not the source of their paychecks. Dan Lanning in Oregon is getting his checks signed by the University of Oregon, yes, but the money they are using to pay him will mostly be coming from Nike in various forms (the corporation, individuals that work there and are alumni, Uncle Phil himself [this one can not be understated]).
They are partly funded by the public
Those football coaches aren’t publicly funded jobs.. your taxes don’t pay for them. They’re paid from the revenue that their program earns and by donations from boosters.
Depending on who some are partially funded with the rest coming from these donations.
ah the wisdom of the dipshit crowds! it hasnt steered us wrong yet! right?
Definitely have our priorities wrong. Education in this country is poor at best and less than .1 of 1% of any sport can make a living at it.
Nah, American colleges are some of the best in the world. Sports just bring in a lot of money. Shitty take.
For the majority of programs, sports do not, in fact, bring in a lot of money. Most collegiate athletics programs in the states operate at a deficit, requiring tapping into a university’s general fund, student fees, or state funding to make up the difference. This makes college more expensive, with virtually no benefit to the average student.
Okay, but how many of the coaches listed here work for those schools?
Football, and Basketball are the only two sports that turn a profit. Every other sport loses money Also in many states it's illegal to tap into tuition without the knowledge of the public, look at James Madison who's under heat for this exact reason Also college sports does put more prestige on schools like UConn, Villanova, Notre Dame, Michigan, and UNC. Also with Title IX every college must put equal spending across men's and women's.
Good thing they're paying those college coaches so well, helping out the less than 1% of athletes who go pro, such an impact on the community.
It’s all about selling tickets and merchandise
Nice sentiment but I don't see millions of people tuning into ESPN to watch a lecture on derivatives bringing millions in ad revenue.
The schools on average would make more money if they cut athletics programs entirely since even most D1 programs lose money. I’d rather my tax dollars not subsidize sports https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2020/11/20/do-college-sports-make-money/
It's almost like state government isn't a for-profit corporation.
The USA has more top universities, professors, students, and research output than any other country, by far. Agree with the principle that scholls should spend more on education than athletics, which they do on average. This map is misleading, as others have said, since it's 1 outlier person making bank, while the sum total of educational staff, and bureaucracy, etc adds up way more.
0.1 of 1% is 0.1% or 1‰
Entertainment pays. If you have this take, you better also have a problem with the amount of cash that flows through music and movie industry. It’s fucking bogus.
It’s entertainment. If the football programs here spun off to be private, it wouldn’t change the amount professors are paid. All college athletics are is entertainment by students who go to that school.
> Education in this country is poor at best We rank in the top 15 nations in public education results.
So let’s get rid of sports, one of the things that allows a LOT of children free college. Do you think most people on track scholarships are doing it so they can be professional runners one day??
They can’t make a living playing it. By the fact that so much money flows into athletics shows you that you can make a living being involved
Sports do a lot for a school. The University of Alabama benefited majorly academically from its success in football over the last 15 years. Also, this isn’t coming from the taxpayers.
There must be at least one that’s former football coach by now.
I mean if college sports isn't the highest priority for our country, then we don't have our priorities straight /s.
Hence, our higher education system is the very source of the obnoxious inequalities in this country.
Idiocracy!
Sad as fuck.
This is a dumb stupid misrepresentation
Winning college sports programs bring in more revenue to their respective states than is spent, completely justifying the coaches’ salaries.
Having spent a lot of time looking at state budgets, if this were, in fact, the metric used to pay state employees then the highest paid employees in every state would probably be affirmative litigation and consumer protection lawyers who often bring in hundreds of millions of dollars per attorney to their states. There are a lot of reasons, some good and some bad, why coaches are the highest paid employees in states, but quantifiable revenue generation is not chief among them.
The scarcity and competitiveness drives up the price. Sure those two professions bring in a lot of money for the state as well, but they’re are a lot more openings
Yet tuition is more expensive than ever and graduates can’t find good paying jobs.
WTF is MED SCHOOL PLASTIC SURGEON?
It's a plastic surgeon at a med school
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/140ch4t/in\_all\_of\_division\_i\_sports\_only\_nine\_schools/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/140ch4t/in_all_of_division_i_sports_only_nine_schools/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
This is why the U.S. is still on top
Curious... is there any such thing as college baseball? Or is it a distant 3rd in terms of popularity/salaries?
Yes and yes at most schools. SEC and ACC baseball is a tier above the rest though
There are a few reasons why college baseball isn’t nearly as popular as basketball or football. First, baseball development is insanely rigorous. Even the best college player will end up spending *some* time in the minor leagues before they make it to MLB. Most major leaguers spent *at least* two years in the minors. So there is a much larger gap in overall talent between MLB & college baseball compared to other sports & there isn’t the added layer of expectations that the best players will be making an impact in pro games in the immediate future (although there are exceptions). Second, in baseball high school players can get drafted into pro ball & go straight to the minors instead of playing college ball. So many of the best American high school players don’t play college baseball at all. Lastly, baseball is a very international sport. Almost a third of MLB players come from Latin America alone. Not to mention the additional players from Japan & Korea. The vast majority of international players don’t play in college baseball. So again, the college game simply doesn’t have the level of relative talent that it does in basketball & football. The MLB game is just such a massive step up in skill that I find it makes watching college ball less compelling for many fans used to MLB. That all being said, college baseball is still a rather popular thing. Just not on the level of college basketball or football.
Have you ever heard of a good football team coming out of Maine? I rest my case.
Improvement! Maine’s used to be their hockey coach, now it’s a non-coach
InB4 the brigade of people going on about how college athletics programs are great because of all the money they bring in, as if the concentration of such wealth in the hands of a few is universally a good thing. ...Aaaand, I'm too late.
Seems kinda fucky
Another reason to not like sports!
Massachusetts highest paid public employee is also a basketball coach, Fransisco Martin, UMass. His salary is $867,102, which double the salary of the medical school chancellor.
Med School Plastic Surgeon?
Non-US poster here. Why is a football coach considered a public employee? Are football teams owned by the state?
State university's have football programs
Future generations are gonna be so confused about what our priorities were
Fucking only in America
That's why they are so dumb
That’s why we live in a version of Idiocracy.
Thank God. I was worried it would be useless professors or politicians.
This is disgusting.
Well duh. I mean, priorities, am I right or what!
Sad.
Arkansas getting fuked over.
i'd be interested to know the source for the data used to generate this map? I feel like i say that a lot on this sub. It's an interesting map idea, but like many maps here it's hard to judge without knowing the validity of the source data.
PJ Fleck is a true huckster.
This isn't porn, this is a tragedy
What the FUCK is Illinois doing paying a college football coach more than any other employee? What college program in that state justifies that? U of I’s perpetual 7-7 season?
Who would win this war?
In Arkansas it is the basketball coach now that we snagged Calipari.
Come on, I don’t think Americans that dumb. There is no way any state agrees to have the FOOTBALL COACH as the highest paid employee, must be bonuses or some shit
If hiring a great coach makes your football program a winner and brings in a $100 million a year to your school, I’d say you’d have to pretty dumb not fight for the chance to pay him $10 million a year to come to your school.
The thing is, there are thousands of public employees making bank in New York, most of them with titles like deputy assistant commissioner for subcontracting at this point nobody's paying attention to the title and we can just say she's tight with the governor. Patronage jobs ain't dead.
See Flutie Factor
America is a weird ass place, a coach of a fuckin non-professional sports team should not be paid millions of dollars lmao.
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Not up to date. The highest paid in Kentucky is Mark Stoops.
So what you’re telling me is I need to become Dr. President of Football Coach School.
So what you're saying is, we had more money for teachers are along.
Misleading since it implies their salaries are paid with public funds and not private donations.
I love football, but there’s no reason coaches need to make that much.
This is one example of why I despise the commercialization and de-localization of sports.
Teaching is a profession that is predominantly women. And the one position that is guaranteed to a man is also the highest paid.
2 in a row baby!
hell yeah
Highest paid federal employee is one of the football coaches at either Army, Navy or the Air Force Academies
And that's why this country is the way it is...
The purpose of a system is what it does.
I love seeing the one for Nevada. I feel it is fitting for that state.
Seriously? Higher than say, a governor? Because that seems absolutely false.
The Reddit “sportsball” folks are at it again
coachisn't
It’s the most Minnesota thing ever to have a tie for the highest paid state employee. I bet there’s some obscure law where there can’t be one single person who makes more than everybody else. This dynamic is tangentially connected to the dynamic that nobody ever eats the last piece of anything at a group dinner or potluck. It’s a passive-aggressive form of making sure nobody feels superior to everybody else.
Sad.
Coaches are public employees? (I’m not from the US)
If they are employees of Public universities like the university of Alabama yes. If they are an employee of private university like Notre Dame then no. It's misleading though as the salary for the coaches at public universities tend to be from boosters rather than the state itself
Love how the power basketball program states all align perfectly
Hawaii football sucks
For Europe?!
My guess is they mean American football and not football.
Gym was May more important than they made it seem I guess?
Does this count military jobs?
We love our coaches in Alabama… I bet our 4 top paid employees are coaches from the 4 football programs at University of Alabama, Auburn University, Troy University and University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). When Nick Saban retired after 2023 season- there was a deep grief in this state.
TIL.......... thanks
Absolutely disgusting, and another hoarding of profits by the NCAA and keeping it from students who could use a free ride.
And folks wonder why college tuition is so high
SEC SEC SEC SEC
please excuse my ignorance, but does this include Supreme Court judges and other senior Feds in the US? What does the President make?
This map tell‘s me I am coaching the wrong sport. Noted for a change in my next life.
Med school plastic surgeon who operates on the football coach
Damn, how much is a soccer coach payed? :)) Might want to emigrate
My EU brain can’t comprehend this
Nice i thought Eggball Was more popular than Football in the US, So its nice to see them getting payed more. 💯
Since calipari left, I think highest paid is mark stoops for Kentucky?
Submit that to /r/ABoringDystopia
Florida is surprising
That’s actually…. Awesome. Thank you for putting this in perspective. I always thought it was taxpayer money
Noice! As it should be. Now let’s cut politicians pay cuz fuckem.
Oh...my...gosh!!! That is staggering. This s\*\*\*, sports pay, is so out of control! Very maddening.
Does this surprise anyone? I am a little surprised about Rhode Island. And Florida…who is getting paid more than Norvell??? I also wonder if ND would have been football coach before Klieman went to K-State.
A few decades out of date. In California the highest paid state employees have long been the people in charge of CalPERS the state employee retirement fund.
A total investment in distractions
Dudes will see this and say hell yeah
This showcases some of the problems with the United States... 'public employees' who are involved with sports ball as the highest paid. These are your tax dollars folks. At least a few states have something of value like medical college deans, but still.
The steadfast and austere Golden Gophers having the same guy coach football and basketball. He does a good job, dontchaknow.
Glad we are focused on the real issues here in America
based northern new england again
Sports violence sells.
No wonder the "great experiment" is about to die
Basketball coach in Florida? Miami Heat?
Considering what the players get paid this seems fair. That said, there are definitely more important jobs that should receive higher pay,
Priorities