Fisher tops $146M owed to fired Power 5 coaches
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Paula Lavigne, ESPN Staff Writer
Texas A&M‘s record $76 million contract buyout for fired football coach Jimbo Fisher accounts for more than half of the approximately $146 million Power 5 schools owe to fired head football coaches since the start of the 2022 season, according to publicly available data.
Fisher’s buyout is nearly triple the highest known coaching contract buyout at a public school. The previous record was set by Auburn‘s 2020 buyout of football coach Gus Malzahn, which cost $21.7 million.
According to an ESPN analysis of athletic department financial records and contracts, Power 5 and Group of 5 programs spent more than $533 million in dead money — owed to coaches who were fired without cause with time left on their contracts — in the 11-year period from Jan. 1, 2010, to Jan. 31, 2021. That included payments to football coaches and men’s and women’s basketball coaches and accounted for head and assistant coaches.
Also included in the $146 million owed since the beginning of the 2022 season:
• $15.5 million for Bryan Harsin, fired from Auburn in October 2022.
• $15 million for Scott Frost, fired from Nebraska in September 2022.
• $11.4 million for Geoff Collins, fired from Georgia Tech in September 2022.
• $11 million for Paul Chryst, fired from Wisconsin in October 2022.
• $8.7 million for Karl Dorrell, fired from Colorado in October 2022.
• $4.4 million for Herm Edwards, fired from Arizona State in September 2022.
• $4 million for Zach Arnett, fired from Mississippi State on Monday.
Buyouts can change depending on certain circumstances, including whether a coach lands a new job. According to the terms of Fisher’s contract, Texas A&M will owe Fisher $19.2 million within 60 days and then pay him $7.2 million annually through 2031. There is no offset or mitigation on those payments, and the annual payments start 120 days after termination.
Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said in a news conference Sunday that the school “has to learn a lesson” from Fisher’s contract and that the finances involved in his firing are “monumental.”
“We will use unrestricted contributions within the 12th Man Foundation for the first one-time payment and the athletic department will fund the annual payments for the remaining portion by growing our revenues and adjusting our annual operating budget accordingly,” he said. “Although this is a major, major financial decision that comes with many consequences, we have a plan and we will not let this impact the performance or the culture of our entire athletics program.”
Texas A&M’s athletic department generated about $193 million in revenue in 2022, ranking seventh among public Power 5 colleges, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database. Fisher’s buyout is just $6 million less than the Kansas State athletic department’s total expenses in 2022, which were about $82 million.
The trend, dating to last fall, of firings occurring from midseason to before conference championships has been accelerating. Previously, most coaching changes took place in early December. The transfer portal opens Dec. 4, and the early signing period begins Dec. 20.
B. David Ridpath, Ohio University sports business professor and a member of The Drake Group, an organization that lobbies Congress on issues in college athletics, said that despite claims of donors footing the bill for buyouts, “regardless of where the money comes from, all money is state money at a public institution.” While he said he understands some severance is needed for coaches fired for performance reasons, it doesn’t make sense to pay out their entire contracts for essentially a failure to perform.
Ridpath said the ability of schools to pay these buyouts shows that they can come up with the money to pay athletes, which is a highly debated issue among university leaders, the NCAA, conferences, legislators and athlete advocacy groups.
“I would like to think [the Fisher buyout] would be so outrageous that the Texas public policy groups or state legislators or federal delegation says, ‘Hold on a second. Our public institutions should not be doing this,'” Ridpath said. “What I fear is, this is only going to get larger. The only thing that will stem this tide is if the labor is paid,” and more money goes to the athletes instead of the coaches.
The $146 million calculation does not include contract money potentially owed to former Michigan State coach Mel Tucker, who was fired for cause in September amid a sexual misconduct investigation, or to former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who was fired following an investigation into hazing allegations. Fitzgerald is suing Northwestern for wrongful termination, and Tucker has said he is preparing to file a similar lawsuit against Michigan State.
SUNRISE, Fla. — Brad Marchand put the puck in the back of the net for the Florida Panthers on Saturday night then pointed a finger in the air and looked to the sky.
The reason was obvious.
This goal was for Selah.
Marchand’s sixth goal of this season and the 430th of his career was unlike any other. It came three days after he was home in Nova Scotia paying tribute to the life of 10-year-old Selah Panacci-MacCallum — the daughter of his close friend JP MacCallum. Selah died Oct. 24 of adrenal cortical carcinoma, a rare form of cancer.
“The hockey gods always come through,” Marchand told the Panthers’ broadcast after the second period in an interview aired throughout the arena. “It was a really, really tough week. That’s a special one to get for Selah.”
Marchand missed Florida’s game Tuesday against the visiting Anaheim Ducks to be with his friend’s family in Nova Scotia and did so with the Panthers’ blessing. Marchand filled in for JP MacCallum as the coach of the under-18 March and Mill Co. Hunters in Halifax on Wednesday night; Marchand co-owns that team.
That game Wednesday was a fundraiser for the MacCallum family.
“We fully appreciate the things that are most important, and hockey’s very, very important,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said earlier Saturday. “But there’s some things that just easily outweigh it, and they need to be dealt with. And what he’s going through is real.
“There’s things that just trump the game of hockey.”
Marchand said his bond with JP MacCallum goes back for many years and that he simply had to make the long trip home to pay tribute to Selah.
“She lived life to the fullest,” Marchand said during Saturday’s in-game interview. “And walking away from the week, I have such a new perspective on life and what it all means and how precious it is and how precious time is. It’s every day. It’s not just a game. It’s not just a sport. It’s how we live every single day, and she lived to the fullest.
“To carry on her memory, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to live every day to the fullest, enjoy it, and we’re not going to take it for granted.”
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