Your Take: Worth Every Penny

Last August there was outrage in some parts of the media. News broke that University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer was getting a contract extension. The new deal meant that Meyer was going to earn at least $4 million on his new contract, and could make up to $4.5 million with incentives. There was cause for commotion, but it should have been because Meyer was so underpaid. Yes, underpaid. As in a bargain.

While those who were critical of Meyer’s new deal talked about the tough economic times and pointed out that Meyer’s own university had earlier announced $42 million in budget cuts and layoffs of nine faculty members and 49 staff employees, if anything those were even more proof of why the coach was such a value.

In Meyer’s case, the state-funded school doesn’t actually even pay the head coach’s salary. The University Athletic Association, a separate entity that funds Florida’s athletic department, is the one that picks up that tab. And thanks in large part to Meyer, who has led UF to two national titles in four years, Gator football – and SEC football – is at unprecedented heights. The conference signed a $3 billion TV deal with ESPN and CBS. And who knows how much more green is headed their way amid all of this conference expansion talk.

The Gators athletic department, which receives no state money, has a $91 million budget; about 65 percent of that comes from the football program, according to UF sources. And that 65 percent doesn’t even include the money UF football drives via merchandising (shirts, gear, etc.) Since 2005, the UAA also has given back over $17 million to UF. On top of that, since Meyer arrived in Gainesville, he has made them a more attractive TV commodity, which also means that those TV appearances, which is more than 50 in five seasons, you can also factor in the advertisements of those half-minute university commercials that usually run near halftime. That alone is a value of almost $3 million in airtime. Not to mention that the rest of the game could be seen as three-plus hours of TV coverage that translates into one big commercial for the virtues of the student life experience at Florida or whatever school is being shown.

Of course, Florida isn’t alone in cashing in on an elite coaching job. Texas’ coach Mack Brown is another one of the coaches making big, big money, in fact he’s making north of five million a season. Then again, before Brown arrived in Austin from North Carolina, the Longhorns were seen as a once-proud program that had underachieved for years. Brown not only brought UT another national title in football, but the revenue Texas football is raking in is on a staggering uptick: UT has led the nation in football revenue for the past six years. In 2003-04, UT made $47.6; in 04-05, it went to $53.2, then in 05-06, it was $60.1; in 06-07, it went to $63.8. In 2007-08, that figured jumped to $73 million and it jumped even higher last year to a whopping $87.6 million.

“Mack Brown has built one of the nation’s premier football programs, and he’s brought credit to our university,” University of Texas President William Powers Jr. said. “He has done an outstanding job, and in the time he’s been here, he has generated millions of dollars in new revenue.”

According to a recent study by AngelouEconomics, each Longhorns home football game adds an estimated economic impact of $24 million to Austin’s economy.

Better still, Brown’s work has helped reinforce the image of the Longhorn brand, which has now topped the annual list of top-selling merchandise institutions for five years running. And despite the recession, the UT athletic department is profiting better than ever. According to a Bloomberg News report, Texas is up 32 percent to $138.5 million in revenue in the last two years.

The value of a winner isn’t just significant to the bottom line of an athletic program and the local businesses, it also helps unite a community.

Brown’s opponent in the BCS National Championship Game, Nick Saban at Alabama, has sparked an equally impressive windfall. In 2002, Alabama launched a capital campaign for athletics, with a goal of $50 million in five years. The school exceeded that by $20 million, and according to the USA Today, the donations total surpassed the $100 million mark in January. And with Saban’s Tide having just captured a title, how much more can the Alabama brass expect in the aftermath?
The other part of this talk is on the pressure side. In 2006 and 2007, I was a fly-on-the-wall inside the Ole Miss football office, I saw first hand the stress of the coaching world. The hot-seat environment is grueling not only for the guy in the big chair, but also for each of his assistants and each of their families. There is no job stability in this business. Graduating all of your players won’t be good enough. This also wasn’t a case of a coaching staff that was among the most highest-paid in the industry. It didn’t matter. The pressure can crank up just as high regardless. There are still media examining a coach’s every move, seats to be filled, recruits to be wooed and boosters to be appeased. If you don’t win enough-or win fast enough, get ready for another move, which means trying to unload your home, pack, find another job, another house, a new set of schools for your kids, a new set of friends for your kids. It is a mind-numbing process.
If anything, the pressure only swells as the spotlight gets wider and hotter and the expectations get bigger. After all, boosters and college power brokers have seen how quickly Saban and Meyer turned around dormant programs into title teams. As they say, it’s why they get paid the big bucks. And they should.

Bruce Feldman is a senior writer for ESPN.com and the author of Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting. He can be reached at Bruce.Feldman@espn.com or on Twitter at BFeldmanESPN.