Thursday, November 16, 2006

McNews McMust McRead

There is a must read in today's USA Today on college football coach's salaries. But that is not the half of it. Online they have a sortable list of all NCAA coach's salaries, including bonuses and other income. But wait, there is more! Through the joy of Freedom of Information, for the state schools, they have copies of every contract! Who doesn't want to read Art Briles' contract!

Brace yourself SMU fans. Many of you will be surprised to know on salary alone, Phil Bennett is the highest paid coach in Conference USA. Now, when you include bonuses and other income, Bennett drops to a humble fifth.

Edit: Another thing that should come as no surprise is the disparity between the compensation of coaches in BCS conferences and coaches in non-BCS conferences. Not just at the higher levels, but on down the line. The lowest paid coaches in BCS conferences make substantially more than most non-BCS conferences.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I, for one, do not believe that Bennett gets no outside income. I think the reason it shows zero is that USA Today could not identify any such payments. My guess is that any such contracts are not publicized by SMU or Bennett, so there are no publicly available records that can be located easily. I cannot believe that there are not any real estate partnerships floating around without his name on them. Also, I would bet there are some insurance instruments that he benefits from and pays no premium on.