There was a time, long, long ago, when professional athletes and coaches worked off-season jobs to supplement their incomes. That era is long gone, and it’s good that sports professionals can earn enough money to support their families today. In fact, in today’s college coaching world, NOT-working seems like an even much better gig.
LSU paid Brian Kelly about $9 million per year to coach the LSU football team. He didn’t win enough (translation: didn’t do a good enough job), so LSU fired him. Kelly walked out of the LSU athletic department with a $53 million goodbye hug.
You read that right; Kelly got a $53 million buyout for getting fired for not performing up to the expectations for his job. I once got fired from an executive position at a mid-size software firm and was monitored when I packed up so I wouldn’t steal the stapler. Kelly got Power Ball money.
But don’t worry because the university had a plan. They hired the current hot commodity, Lane Kiffin, who broke his agreement with Ol Miss, to pledge his new loyalty to $13 million a year for seven years, at LSU – that’s $91 million if you were ciphering. With incentives and bonuses, that number will undoubtedly climb, but hey, that’s the cost of higher education.
LSU is entering a historic moment in college sports: paying three head coaches at the same time. This month they will wire the final $426,000 owed to Ed Orgeron from his buyout (yes, he was fired when they wanted Kelly) while starting $53 million in payments to Kelly and adding Kiffin to the payroll. LSU’s payroll administrator must be curled under a desk whimpering, “We could have just funded a cure for cancer.”
Closer to home, my alma mater has jumped onto the coaching carousel where we pay for the new coach while we pay to get rid of the old.
Jonathan Smith will receive 85% of his coaching salary to NOT coach football in East Lansing next year, and the year after, and the three years after that. Michigan State University will pay $33 million to Smith, in sixty-two monthly installments starting this month. In other words, Smith gets a half-million+ per month to stay home, organize his garage, and write a few Christmas cards.
And a day after the Smith firing, MSU signed ex-Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald to a five-year, $30 million contract. If Fitzgerald gets canned after two years (which, given recent history, is the current over/under), he’ll get $14 million to go away, while Smith is still collecting his $532,000-a-month for three more years. And we don’t even know how much the coach before Smith got after getting fired for having phone sex with the woman he hired to talk to the team about proper sexual discipline. You can’t make this stuff up.
And just for fun, let us remember that new MSU Coach Fitzgerald was fired from Northwestern for a hazing scandal, about which he claimed to know nothing, and then sued the university for $130 million. We don’t know what he got, but the bet here is that it was for more than most get when fired.
Obviously, this insane waste is not limited to Baton Rouge and East Lansing. America’s huge universities have enhanced their emphasis on athletics. And, if sports salaries don’t seem out of control to you, consider that Jarod Goff gets more than $3 million per game for the Detroit Lions on a 17-game schedule. I’m sorry; I like the guy, and I root for the Lions, but that is insane.
To attend an MSU football game in 2025, season tickets were $330 for six home games, PLUS a mandatory seat fee, whatever that is, of $50 to $700. Who takes a family to these games anymore? Once you add $9 hot dogs for everyone, you’re spending real money.
MSU’s website explained the price uptick for 2025, “These increases are an opportunity for our Spartan community to continue to play a role in our sustained excellence.” Wow; thank you for the opportunity MSU.
If Jonathan Smith had kept his job, maybe we could have saved a couple bucks. After all, many remember that some folks wanted Tom Izzo fired after his first two seasons as MSU’s basketball coach.
But wait, reinforcements are coming. This week MSU announced a $401 million gift from Greg and Dawn Williams, the largest donation in school history. Of that amount, $390 million will go to athletics. Let that sink in a moment. I hear the medical school is holding a bake sale.
The gift also specified $100 million for Spartan Ventures, a nonprofit corporation to raise more funds for the athletic department. We may not need that much if we quit firing coaches.
Today, thanks to Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) deals, many college athletes are making more money than the professors who allegedly teach their classes. Something seems out of whack. What is the buyout for a math professor who gets fired? A stapler?
Who thinks that something will change? I root for my school’s sports teams. I want them to beat Duke someday, and I enjoy watching the games on television (no, I don’t go to the games in person anymore).
I like to think that one day universities will look at these salaries, buyouts, and athletic costs and say, “Hey, maybe we should put less resource into former employees than current students.” Maybe.
But then my cynicism kicks in. So, let’s see if we might coax Nick Saban out of retirement; $30 million a year might do it.
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