Rumor: Harbaugh to be offered $8 million from UM
Edit: The only reason I posted this is to start a discussion on potential compensation. I don't really believe that this ninny has any idea what UM may offer Harbaugh(if it even comes to that).
Edit 2: I deleted the link because the icky feeling I had when I first visited his blog came back with extra intensity. I don't want to give that schmuck anymore clicks than I already did.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:41 PM ^
is firewalled where i work. Can you provide the highlights, without posting the article? (Mods frown on that...)
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:44 PM ^
Random internet dude says UM offered Harbaugh $8 Million. Would make him the highest paid football coach at any level. No source information, no nothing.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:49 PM ^
But he does have a GMail address: [email protected]
That makes it totally legit, right?
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^
I'm not saying he's right about this, but I think he had Brandon's firing before anyone else. Brian might vouch for that.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^
Interesting - I certainly wouldn't mind if this were true. Although having Schefter the opposite side of things saying that Harbaugh isn't coming tends to give me a little pause
December 3rd, 2014 at 5:37 PM ^
. . . and Schliss on yet another opposite side saying "There's no freaking way we're paying a football coach that kind of money after I preached to the world about athletics being out of balance."
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:34 PM ^
No way anyone would have guessed that was coming!
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:51 PM ^
I think he first tweeted that day that the press conference would be held and that Brandon would be fired. It beat everyone else. It wasn't a random guess. And, he's not really in that business, from what I can tell.
That said, I'm not the guy who you mock for buying every internet rumor that comes along. I totally get the skepticism. And, I don't care what you all believe. I'm just saying that the salt that goes with this report in particular should probably be of the grain and not the boulder variety.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
I'm guessing Harbaugh won't be offered more than $4 million. That's Urbz salary and 2x what Hoke made.
I'm also guessing the "source" of the rumor that Harbaugh will be offered $8 million was the random internet guy's left butt-cheek.
December 3rd, 2014 at 4:27 PM ^
he is a proben comedity, and while things might not be going perfectly at the 49ers right now, its not going badly, and there are non football reasons he is "available"
If offerd he would be offerd money equal or close to the top payed coaches in the NFL and College
December 3rd, 2014 at 5:25 PM ^
Is there any NCAA preventing one of us from starting a Harbaugh kickstarter? You know, take donations from fans and alumni and say, "Hey Harbaugh, if you accept the Michigan job you can have this sack of cash!"
December 3rd, 2014 at 6:13 PM ^
4.5M base salary
500K for division win
1M Big Ten Championship
1M MNC
Throw in a few incentives and it's 8M but not as a base salary
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:16 PM ^
After Schlissel's comments regarding "balance," I cannot imagine this is true.
However, I sure hope it's true. From an athletics funding perspective, it would be the best investment the Michigan AD will ever make.
But based on Schlissel's comments, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the possibility.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:41 PM ^
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December 3rd, 2014 at 1:44 PM ^
Paying top dollar sends a message that we take football seriously, that we demand the best and that we are willing to pay top dollar for what we consider to be the best. I see nothing wrong with this.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:46 PM ^
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December 3rd, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^
He turned San Diego into a winner, winning 11 games in his last two years, turned Stanford into a power, and is 46-17 in his tenure in the NFL.
He is a top 5 coach, period.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:13 PM ^
Top 5? Yeah, totally. Top 5 does not mean 8 million a year though. Second highest paid coach is actually Dantonio with 5.5 mil a year, Meyer is 5th or 6th with 4.5. And Dantionio didn't start there, but he proved he was worth that money during his tenure. Around 5 mil would seem to be a smarter or fairer rate for Harbaugh until he proves he's worth more.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^
Top 5, PERIOD.
I'm not talking about college, or NFL. I am talking about both. He is a top 5 coach, no matter how you spin it.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:23 PM ^
Made backwater Stanford into a national powerhouse. Took 49ers' existing talent and coached them up to actually compete. Repeated appearances in NFC championship games. Got to a Super Bowl and was a minute and a Jimmy Smith hold away from winning it.
People forget how rare it is to even have a chance at a successful NFL coach as a college. That almost NEVER happens.
Why do we think we could get away with being cheap on Harbaugh's salary? If we truly want Harbaugh and he is in fact interested in the job, we'd better shell out the money that it takes to be successful in signing him to a deal.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:22 PM ^
Ok. And if you include the NFL, you still don't get to 8 million. It's up there, but Belichick is the highest paid with 7.5 and Andy Reid is up there at almost the same amount, but he's also the GM as well.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
Michigan is trying to pry a highly succesful NFL coach from the pro ranks (where he'll have plenty of suitors) back to a job that is arguably more demanding; something that has never actually happened before in the history of college or NFL football. Offering Harbaugh ludicrous money might be one of the only things that Michigan can do to convince him to leave the NFL. If you are arguing against the merit of such a move most people would probably agree with you, but then again most Michigan fans are really tired of losing.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:48 PM ^
I don't know in what world being a college coach is more demanding than the NFL...
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:53 PM ^
Traveling to recruit would be my best argument. But you're also playing four less games. It all comes out in the wash.
December 3rd, 2014 at 4:53 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 7:09 PM ^
Quite surprised you had to fix that...
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
I did say arguably more demanding but here is an article that can elaborate some of the reasons why college coaching may be a lot worse than coaching in the NFL
http://commonnewsupdate.com/?p=77128
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
I would argue that Harbaugh would mean more to Michigan than either of those guys mean to their respective teams. And Michigan has more money.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:50 PM ^
I would go further and say that Harbaugh also meansmore to Michigan than he would mean to another NFL team. We need him more than they do. He's a great coach but he's still not as much of a sure thing there as he would be here. At a place like Michigan, the return on that $8 Million investment can be easily identified. In the NFL it's not as obvious.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:40 PM ^
you're talking about paying him more money than any of the other top 5 coaches in the country
more money than Nick Saban and his 4 national titles
more money than Bill Belichick and his 3 Super Bowl rings
more money than Pete Carroll and his 2 national titles and 1 Super Bowl ring
Michigan should pay for results. Give Harbaugh all the performance bonuses in the world and give him $6 million a year or so, be the highest paid coach in the B1G and the second highest paid in college. But if he starts demanding more money than he's actually worth, fuck him.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:01 PM ^
by a one time $2M bonus. He makes $3.6M in salary.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:03 PM ^
Jim Harbaugh being the best available means he's the best. It is irrelevant what somebody better than him is making if they are not on the market.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:11 PM ^
I think you're undervaluing what he's done.
He turned a terrible Stanford team into a national power in a few years and did the same in the NFL to the 49ers. His track record easily makes him one of the best coaches in the game currently coaching.
Paying him the most is not necessarily indicitive that he's #1, rather, that we want him that much and we have really no real ability to take any of the other top 10.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^
a lot of coaches would be in play if Harbaugh didn't take it.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:47 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^
Almost everyone in UM's peer group (talking the OSUs, Bama's, UF's, USC's, etc) could match that if they really wanted. And just because UM has a ton of money, doesn't mean they should just throw it out with reckless abandon. 8 mil could be worth it, but Harbaugh would need to provide some huge results to get the ROI at this time. And more globally, good lord, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the crazy coaching salary increases. How much longer is it sustainable? Is it even ethical? I know, lots of debate there, but that's just how I feel man.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^
Michigan faces a stark choice - either we lock down a top coach with a proven record of success right now, or we take the cheap route and repeat this process in four years. The former choice is going to require us to pay money. The last thing we need is to be penny wise, pound foolish.
If we truly care about being an elite program again, we'll spend the money. It's as simple as that.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:19 PM ^
And if UM truly cares about being a sustainable elite program, they'll spend their money wisely. There is no gaurentee, no matter how much you pay him, that Harbaugh will win championships at UM. Yes, it's much more likely that he does than other candidates. But if he's demanding an ungodly amount of money, then UM has to look as say is the money worth the risk, or is it more worth it to go after a young promising guy, like a Tom Herman, who requires less investment buy may pay off bigger if it works out. I don't know what they'll do, but there will be some tough decisions.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:25 PM ^
I have 8 billion reasons why Michigan could sustain Harbaugh's salary.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:47 PM ^
if you want us to start taking money from the ENDOWMENT to pay for Harbaugh, I suggest you visit Ann Arbor on a day OTHER than Saturday. There's a whole University there, dude.
December 3rd, 2014 at 10:43 PM ^
but Michigan Football generates ~$85 mil/yr in revenue and ~$60 mil/yr in profits. Investing more--in fact, an order of magnitude more--in the cash cow is absolutely sustainable.
Of course our revenue peers (Texas, Ohio State, Florida, Alabama, and Notre Dame*) have the same dry powder as well.
Where does the lion's share of that $60 mil/yr profit go? It stays in the athletic department and is spent on profit-negative sports, such that the annual athletic department surplus is less than $10 mil/yr.
IMO, the athletic department is very agressive in extracting football revenues but highly cavelier in doling those revenues out to the profit-negative sports.
That was all fine-and-dandy as long as those supplying the football revenue had sufficient belief in the program to be "sufficiently" content. But this year, the canary-in-the-coal-mine died as significant number empty seats began to appear.
Now I doubt that the fans that decided to forgo attending the games thought much about the distribution of the $60 mil/yr profit within the AD. They just decided it wasn't worth their time anymore to attend. And the donors are likely to follow the canary-in-the-coal-mine eventually.
So I don't think that the question is whether $8 mm/yr for Harbaugh is sustainable, it's whether that $60 mm/yr football profit (the funding source of much of the AD) is sustainable.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-7-most-valuable-college-football-tea…
* Since Notre Dame is a private institution, it does not report its revenues, and is often omitted from rankings due to the lack of information. Nonetheless, Notre Dame is surely in the peer list.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:07 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 4:36 PM ^
This is the one coaching search that we cannot afford to screw up. If we don't get a great coach, then we will suffer through four more years of losing to our rivals, underachiving, and we will be right back in this same conversation, and situation, four years from now. So why not offer an incentive laden contract that gives the new coach a chance to be the highest paid coach in the land, if he wins Nation Championships, but keeps him below that if he fails ?
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:13 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
you realize how much they paid brady hoke right? harbaugh is worth more than hoke, cannot be debated - the only debate would be does harbaugh command double hokes pay, triple?
if michigan really wants to win football games, then they need to open the checkbook - if they do not want to pay top dollar to whoever they view as the best available candidate then they should be prepared to continue losing to osu, msu, nd, and other teams better not named
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:50 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^
I think the benefit to the program in terms of ticket sales, merchandise, enthusiasm, and national exposure could make 8+ million seem like chump change in the future. The university is sitting on an 8 billion dollar endowment and has the backing of Ross, so while this is a high price, it's certainly feasible.
December 3rd, 2014 at 2:06 PM ^
8 million could absolutely be a good investment. It is for Bama and Saban. But could is the operative word. I mean, Saban started at $4 million a year and already had won an NC in the SEC. Saban only got the boost to $7 million after winning 3 national championships. Meyer started of at litte over 4 mill a year now makes 4.5. I just think you don't throw that kind of money without seeing some evidence that it's actually worth it first.