Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Media & Entertainment Law Blogs -> Sports Law Blog

Media & Entertainment Law

: Sports Law Blog

Kansas State Raises the Compensation Bar of Assistant Coaches

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

While much is talked about the exorbitant salaries of college head coaches, Rivals.coms's Bob McClellan has done some interesting research on the salaries of assistant basketball coaches (Kansas State's Hill Earns Surprising Salary). McClellan found one contract that sticks out like a sore thumb -- that of Kansas State's Dalonte Hill who will now be earning $420,000 in total compensation annually for the next four years! For the next four years, Hill will receive a base salary of $150,000 and "additional compensation" of $270,000. According to McClellan, the salaries of the 12 assistants at the schools in last season's Final Four, which range from $125,000 to $265,000, pale in comparison to what Hill will be paid in 2008-09. McClellan interviewed one SEC assistant who said, "The number ($420,000) is staggering. It might be better for assistant coaches if he got $300,000 because then it's closer to what some guys make and you could see asking for something close to that. But that number is just so far out there I don't think any assistant would go in and ask for more."

So why is KS paying him almost $200k more than the next highest paid assistant coach and $300k more than most assistant coaches make? Apparently, it has something to do with Hill's recruitment of Michael Beasley, who McClellan says "made Kansas State basketball relevant for the first time in more than a decade last season, and his presence put a few extra dollars in the pocket of the man responsible for luring him to Manhattan, Kan." Hill was Beasley's AAU coach and Beasley referred to him "like a big brother." According to McClellan, KS athletic director Bob Krause told the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World that Hill put the K-State program on a different plane when he secured the signing of Beasley. Krause told the newspaper, "I'd hate to put a value on what the exposure, both print and electronic, has been on Michael. That's an identification with a guy who's a very strong advocate of K-State and, in his own words, will always be a part of the K-State family. Michael's love for K-State ? it's priceless, just priceless."

Well, the exposure Beasley brings to KS is apparently worth at least two to three hundred grand per year. Perhaps Beasley is the one who should be renegotiating his contract with KS.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).