Legal Commentary

Having complained about Jim Calhoun's $1.6 million salary, I think I'm obligated to take issue with a raise that dwarfs Calhoun's entire salary.  Mack Brown is now making $5.1 million a year as a football coach through the year 2016 (or until the next raise).  A resolution of the UT Faculty Council said the deal was "unseemly and inappropriate." This resolution has drawn its own share of criticism.  The UT president pointed out that the athletic program, under Brown, has had no subsidies or deficits and has channeled $6.6 million into academic programs in recent years.  This is the same version of the argument used to support Calhoun's salary -- namely, the athletic programs more than pay for themselves, so they can pay their people in the millions of dollars.  Just today I heard ESPN personalities Mike Greenberg & Tony Kornheiser accuse the UT professors ("eggheads," in Kornheiser's parlance) of being completely wrong on the economics.

What the commentators are missing -- or, at least not talking about -- is that the "market" for college coaches is a grossly distorted one.  There is a lot of money floating around college sports -- primarily through TV contracts, but also ticket sales, team endorsements, licensing, and advertising.  But that money has nowhere to go, other than to the schools and the coaches.  The NCAA places strict limits on what players can get from their university -- only a scholarship.  And NBA and NFL rules essentially require that players spend time in college before entering the pros.  So what we have are athletes who must spend time in college to pursue their profession but cannot get paid for it.  So the money goes instead to the coaches.

If you have any doubt about this, just look at baseball.  Baseball has a thriving minor league system; there is college baseball, but you need not go to college to get into the pros.  How much do college baseball coaches get? This article says they make about one-sixth what football coaches make.  This one (from 2007) says that the highest paid college baseball coach makes $600,000.  Or look at pro football.  Only four NFL coaches made more than Mack Brown last year (according to this estimation).  Thirteen made less than $3 million; five made less than his raise. 

If we are going to keep the system we have, let's be honest about it.  We now take talented young athletes and use their skills to fund our universities.  The coaches help facilitate this -- and they are taking more and more off the top.  There are reasons to support this system, but saying that coaches "deserve" this money because of a distorted market is not one of them.