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Jimbo Fisher’s new deal with Texas A&M will pay him a guaranteed $75 million over 10 years. There’s never been a richer college coaching contract by total value.
How San Diego State coach Rocky Long feels about that:
SDSU’s Rocky Long on Jimbo Fisher’s $75M contract: “He doesn't make 1 tackle, doesn't catch 1 pass, he doesn't score 1 TD. We’re not only in this to have a salary, we're in this to develop young men so (coaching salaries are) embarrassing at times” via Mark & Rich Show XTRA 1360
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 11, 2017
Texas A&M’s football program is massively profitable. It netted about $70 million for the university in the 2015-16 school year, most of which subsidized other A&M sports. The school gets $40-ish million annual payouts from the SEC. The Aggies are one of the few athletic departments that probably can afford to pay a coach a $7.5 million.
Long’s pay at San Diego State was about $826,000 this year, according to the coaching pay database at USA Today. That’s not close to Fisher money, but it’s still a lot for a coach whose players aren’t paid. That’s the case for pretty much everyone who’s paid a college coaching salary to lead players who aren’t paid. Also, there’s this:
San Diego State RB Rashaad Penny named first-team All-American by Sports Illustrated. That gives coach Rocky Long a $10,000 bonus and each assistant coach and the strength coach a bonus equal to 1% of base salary
— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) December 8, 2017
You already know what Rashaad Penny’s bonus is.
A $10,000 bonus isn’t close to the same thing as a $7.5 million coaching salary. And by college coaching standards, Long’s a bargain. He’s one of the Mountain West’s best coaches and only gets middling pay for that league, where some are over $1.5 million.
But figuring out what a morally acceptable number is in a sport where the players are compensated largely in room and board seems like a hard task to me.