The season is starting.
The 2023-2024 NCAA college football season is here as “Week 0” begins with a number of games on the schedule. Most college football teams, however, officially begin the season with “Week 1” on September 2nd. With the season starting, it is a good time to see where the head coach of a public college or university stands in the ranks of salaries in a state. Surely, a governor has to make more money than a head football coach. The Sports Daily website has published a list of the highest paid state employees and the website’s writers and researchers have found that 31 of the 50 states highest-paid state employees are the public school’s head football coaches. Taxpayers do contribute a great deal of the money for the salaries but part of the money to pay coaches may come from school boosters, school marketing partners and local television entities for a coach’s TV show or from radio stations also paying the salary for a coach’s show.
The Sports Daily pointed out that 80% of the highest-earning public employees are college head football coaches. The University of Alabama’s Nick Saban makes $11.7 million annually. According to The Sports Daily, the top ten highest-earning state employees are all college coaches who earn an average of $9.8 million annually. Saban, the University of Georgia’s Kirby Smart and South Carolina’s Dabo Swinney make more than $10 million annually. The University of Kentucky Basketball Coach John Calipari makes $8.6 million a year. There are no governors on the list of top state employees. That brings up the question. Why are college football or basketball coaches a state’s highest paid worker as all they do is have a job as a part of an entertainment package and are not responsible for taking control in the event of a disaster. College sports is out of whack to its importance in society.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
