Stan Geiger

Football Coaches and CEOs

We’ve all heard about corporate excess. We’ve heard a lot about it lately. Given the recent news of football coach Mack Brown’s new salary of what is now reported to be $5.1 million a year, I think a little compare and contrast is in order.

One of UT’s justifications for giving Brown the big money has to do with growth in football revenue to the school. Officials say said revenue has quadrupled since Brown arrived, going from $21.3 million in 1997 to $87.5 million last year. Okay, so that’s impressive. But the question is, can that revenue growth be attributed solely to the greatness of Mack Brown? I’d say not.

Texas went through a couple of decades in the dumper prior to Brown’s hiring, languishing in a dead conference. That means the baseline for a revenue growth comparison during Brown’s tenure is set pretty low.

By the time Brown showed up at Texas, the new Big 12 super conference was in business. More TV revenue, championship game revenue and BCS bowl revenue came with the formation of the Big 12. In addition, Texas has enlarged its stadium during the Brown tenure. It now seats over 96,000. Not only does Texas’ stadium have more seating capacity than in the ‘90s, it’s quite likely tickets are selling for much higher prices than they did in the ‘90s.

Giving Mack Brown credit for quadrupling Texas football revenue during his tenure as head coach is absurd. Such a stance is the product of a very limited---if not nonexistent---analysis. But then, that’s something I’ve come to expect from educators.

Another justification has to do with athletics at universities being financially self-sustaining. In other words, the claim is no tax or tuition money goes to paying coaches. Coaches are paid from athletic revenue alone.

USA Today ran a story on the Mack Brown raise. In that story, the paper said it had recently done a survey of 120 top schools. Only 25---about a fifth---were bringing in more money from athletics than they were spending on athletics. Outside of a handful of elite programs, in other words, athletics are not financially self-sustaining.

Texas is one of the elites. So that particular university can make a valid claim the money to pay Brown’s fat salary is not coming from taxes or tuition---technically at least. But if tax money and tuition flow to the school while $5.1 million in football revenue goes to a coach instead of going to the university in lieu of tax or tuition money, can it really be said Brown is paid by athletic revenue alone?

There is much talk about unemployment and economic stimulus these days. Universities have, in fact, been on the receiving end of a lot of Uncle Sam’s borrowed money in the name of stimulus. The $2 million raise pledged to Brown---if taken out of football and given over to general university expenditures instead---would be enough to “save or create” 50 jobs at a total cost per job of $40,000 per year. Brown’s raise would finance $1,000 raises for 2,000 employees. Figuring a $100 savings per day, Brown’s raise would be enough to stave off 20,000 furlough days.

When a working-class person is laid off and/or can’t find a job it’s a serious situation. When a working-class person gets a $1,000 raise it’s a big help. When a working-class person has to take days off without pay it’s pork chops off the table. When Mack Brown gets a $2 million raise it’s just another $2 million a year going to a guy that is already a multimillionaire.

It cannot be said paying a football coach millions of dollars per year has no impact on anyone or anything simply because football brings in a lot of money.

Since it seems Texas wants to claim its football team is a corporation, separate and distinct from the university, let’s come at it from that point of view.

Breaking it down, you start with the worker bees. Those would be the players. Players get paid. I mean getting to attend a university for free is worth its weight in gold these days. And then there are the other goodies---both legal and illegal under NCAA rules.

Then you’ve got corporate management. The assistant coaches comprise upper and middle management. The head coach is the CEO. The athletic director, one supposes, would be the chairman of the board. The regents comprise the rest of the board. And the citizens of Texas are the shareholders.

The University of Texas Football Corporation grosses $87.5 million a year. Now, you feel free to go out into the private sector---you know, the real world---and find me the owner of a small business with that amount of annual gross revenue that’s paying his or her CEO or general manager or whatever $5.1 million a year to run the place. If you find one, let me know. I’ll hang here, growing a long gray beard while I wait for word.

Let’s jump to the realm of the mega-corporation. Find me a corporation grossing $100 billion a year that is paying its CEO $6 billion a year. I’ve heard of some pretty sweet deals for top executives of huge corporations, no doubt. But I’ve never heard of a corporate executive with a salary of $6 billion. I’ve never heard of a corporate salary that can even approach the $6 billion solar system.

Is there a point to the above paragraph? Well, yes, of course there is a point.

The CEO of the University of Texas Football Corporation is making $5.1 million a year. The corporation grosses $87.5 million a year. So the CEO, Mack Brown, is drawing a salary equal to 6 percent of gross revenue. In order for the CEO of a $100 billion-a-year business to match that, he or she would have to be drawing a salary of $6 billion.

There is no rationale---real or concocted---that can be put forth in defense of football coaches making what they make. Yet it is what it is, and the public responds with thundering silence.

Sometimes I wonder if the government is putting LSD in the water supply.

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