MSU is still blocking details of Mel Tucker’s $95 million guaranteed contract
Isn’t this odd? The next court date in this FOIA battle with Detroit Free Press is in a few weeks. What could MSU be hiding? My hunch, the two billionaire boosters aren’t paying much of the $95M, let alone “all” of it as many Sparties continue to claim? In other words, it looks like more reckless spending at taxpayer expense by a university with financial challenges?
Axios-Detroit: Lawsuit involving Mel Tucker's contract heats up
The closely guarded funding sources of Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker's $95 million contract will be discussed in court Oct. 25 as part of a public records lawsuit.
https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/2022/09/30/foia-friday-lawsuit-mel-tucker-contract
October 3rd, 2022 at 4:32 AM ^
What is crazy is how specifically karma came at the MSU fans.
”Harbaughs a bum. He has a bloated contract, loses a couple times a season in big ten, finishes 3rd in the east, and gets blown out by OSU.”
The best part is Harbaughs median season that they were laughing at may be Tucks ceiling.
October 3rd, 2022 at 10:05 AM ^
Sparty would be extremely lucky to finish 3rd this year.
The Buckeyes are rolling in this weekend. It's rare I root for OSU but I'm hoping for a bloodbath. Like, ugly, maybe 63-0 or something.
October 3rd, 2022 at 10:58 AM ^
Gonna be real hard for them to get to 3rd with that Maryland loss. They SHOULD be able to finish ahead of IU and Rutger. Bowl eligibility is questionable for them, and I love it.
October 3rd, 2022 at 1:58 PM ^
It’s quite possible that Nebraska finishes the season making a bowl and Sparty does not, which would be hilarious.
October 3rd, 2022 at 4:38 PM ^
Oh, you mean like last year!!! Down 49 to NOTHING at the half!!
October 3rd, 2022 at 11:00 AM ^
This reads like one of those hilarious NFT sales by pseudo-finance bros trying to pump up the NFT bubble, which seems on brand for state.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:02 PM ^
Lawsuit comin
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:05 PM ^
Hores 💩
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:08 PM ^
As it says in the article, it may be more to hide any promises made to the donors in order to get the money. Maybe MSU promised to send business to them, etc?
I am not sure how MSU expects to keep this contract private. Even if the money came from private funds, Tucker is still a public employee.
October 3rd, 2022 at 10:28 AM ^
Tucker is the highest paid public employee in the history of the state of Michigan.
October 3rd, 2022 at 2:01 PM ^
They can’t keep it private forever. The lawyer’s defense is the Freep is creating click-bait, which isn’t an actual exemption under FOIA, as amended.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:09 PM ^
Maybe (probably?) MSU is hiding something, but I feel most Universities fight FOIA requests on general principle. They don’t really like the idea of transparency and oversight.
With my own school - it’s eye-rolling: when ANY of Pitt, Temple or PSU (the 3 foremost state related schools in PA) are asked for something, they ALL generally come to the defense of each other (and will support each other’s lawsuits).
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:10 PM ^
Agreed. I think the contents will probably be more embarrassing than anything involving a huge scandal.
On a side note, I have always been amazed that public Pennsylvania universities have continued to remain exempt from FOIA.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:14 PM ^
Agree on Pennsylvania - I edited my post concurrent with your response (and made a double post below oops), but Pitt, Temple and PSU have a damn racket going on.
The Sandusky affair honestly changed NOTHING in that regard either. Crazy but not surprising.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:38 PM ^
When exactly did Universities achieve such exalted status?
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:05 PM ^
With you own school it has, indeed, been eye rolling and I fully agree with the criticism of no FOIA in Pennsylvania.
It seems like you're a pretty decent guy based on your posts. However, please never again equate my alma mater with your "school" and it sycophant administration in their actions though.
"We aren't"
October 3rd, 2022 at 11:28 AM ^
Ah, "my school's fans are better than your school's fans" --- I haven't heard nor sung that song recently, but it's always good to hear others singing the classics.
October 3rd, 2022 at 2:19 PM ^
Indeed.
Do we have any statues built for willful ignorance of abuse on North Broad?
October 3rd, 2022 at 4:30 PM ^
Fair enough - I'm not arguing with you for singing that song. Carry on.
I'm not familiar with the Temple campus, so I can't answer your question.
I will share this metric, for what it's worth: The number of "statues of one-time PSU football statues standing on PSU campus grounds" is lower today than it was 11 October Thirds ago (2011).
October 3rd, 2022 at 2:01 PM ^
UofM is pretty bad about FOIA requests as well.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:10 PM ^
There's a whooole lotta Michigan St fans wondering right now what the buyout is.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:11 PM ^
This is going to end very poorly for them and I will love watching it all go down
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:11 PM ^
*** double post oops ***
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:24 PM ^
ANY controversy around this is bad bad news for MSU. Whatever the details, the fact that he's getting 95 million to suck is going to be repeated a million times. Love it.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:49 PM ^
Repeated 95 million times*
Ftfy
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:33 PM ^
Might have something to do with the reckless guarantee in the 95 million dollar contract. Embarrassing.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:34 PM ^
At the 5:04 mark, there is an audible toilet flush. I consider that a fitting omen for Tuck.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:47 PM ^
They mortgaged the cows to pay for it.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:34 PM ^
Cows and rockets. Seems very Michigan State after a loss.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:52 PM ^
Gee, you'd think they'd get what state university means, since it's in their name.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:05 PM ^
Tucker better start recruiting better or Spartan fans will start buying this new item. I’m sure it will save a few couches.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:17 PM ^
Oh ask any MSU fan, they all say his next two recruiting classes are awesome. Don’t remind them that none of those kids are signed and may not stick if they don’t even make a bowl game.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:32 PM ^
I bet it is NOT flame resistant, and probably has an accelerant - certain traditions will live on....
October 2nd, 2022 at 11:38 PM ^
Ha. "Protect". What does it protect?
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:30 PM ^
The amount of times I had to see or listen to, Harbaugh makes X and can’t even finish better than 3rd in the east is suddenly going to be so rich it’s hilarious.
Even when MSU lost to Michigan they’d still say that. Well here we are, sparty fans, hope you like that narrative.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:30 PM ^
I'm convinced that LSO offered Tucker a 10-year, $95 million deal, [it's no coincidence that Brian Kelly got the same 10 year, $95 million deal.] and that Tucker gave MSU the option to match or he would walk on over to LSU.
At the time, Tucker had beaten Michigan for the second straight year and had not played Ohio State. MSU saw how much trouble they had to go through just to get Tucker to leave Colorado after everyone else had given MSU a pass. So, gun to their head, they bought into the hype and matched what LSU was offering fearing what letting Tucker leave would do to the program.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:40 PM ^
There's no way LSU was serious about Tucker. They wanted a big name splash hire with proven long term success. Mel's name was just thrown around by his agent to leverage Sparty for money. Happens all the time in the sport and it's almost always just media hype. Sparty was desperate enough to fall for it and then Mel Tucker was sleezy enough to push for it
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:10 PM ^
I've heard that there was some level of interest in Tucker - LSU struck out on a lot of guys so if you're down to trying to steal Brian Kelly from Notre Dame you're probably in the Tucker-tier in terms of flawed candidates (Brian Kelly's being he's Brian Kelly, the most New England coach this side of Don Brown but who can coach teams, while Tucker it's limited coaching success but a decent recruiter) - but it definitely wasn't worth $95M to MSU to find out.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:38 PM ^
MSU panicked, they didnt want history to repeat itself and lose a coach to LSU twice. Tuck isnt Saban though, and theyre about to realize they've been Charlie Weis'd.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:49 PM ^
Could be, but it could also just be that Kelly's agent demanded "Mel Tucker money" from LSU.
We know at any rate that Sparty paid a lot just to get Tucker in the first place. He turned down their initial offer, only for them to double it.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:07 PM ^
Yeah, the fact MSU "didn't take no for an answer" when Tucker turned them down initially is starting to look like a missed escape since they've basically locked themselves into a less successful version of Brady Hoke (at least Hoke had won elsewhere before he wound up at UM) who they can't fire cheaply AND who doesn't seem to have any great affinity for MSU. At least with Hoke you had a guy who loved the school and wanted to be there. Tucker feels like a guy a house flipper who's going to keep trying to get out from the deal if a better opportunity shows up.
October 3rd, 2022 at 12:08 AM ^
Hell, Hoke at least beat OSU once
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:55 PM ^
I am pretty sure the alleged $95 million contract was offered and signed right after Ohio State had just embarrassed them 49-0 after two quarters. My hunch is the LSU “rumors” were fabricated by Tucker’s team and/or MSU to confer status to the coach and rationalize their irresponsible “historic” and “record breaking” contract offer while the university was strapped for cash.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:08 PM ^
I hope MSU has no way out of this contract and Tuck coaches every day that he signed up to coach. Michigan State bought themselves something for $95MM, but it's somehow a gift to Michigan.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:10 PM ^
I remember seeing some speculation the first time this came up that this could be title IX related.
I believe it was something about gifts or outside funds tied to specific sports - having to be balanced under (at least) some interpretations of the rule.
It was also speculated that M gets around this somewhat by endowing portions of it's larger coaching contracts. ---- I would guess you would need a HUGE endowment to cover $9.5mm yearly for Tucker - (and I believe the new contract also included big increases in the assistant pool ..)
This could very well have been BS - otherwise couldn't coaching buyouts fall under the same restrictions?
October 2nd, 2022 at 11:33 PM ^
My hunch, the two billionaire boosters aren’t paying much of the $95M, let alone “all” of it as many Sparties continue to claim? In other words, it looks like more reckless spending at taxpayer expense by a university with financial challenges?
But why are you worried about this?
It's not like Staee petitioned the state legislature for Mel's contract. It comes out of their budget.
Moo U gets n millions allocated from the state. If they chose to give Mel n+x and short other departments that's their prerogative.
As a taxpayer, I don't feel like Mel is ripping me off. I'm just LOLing at Sparty that they have this huge albatross of their own creation.
October 3rd, 2022 at 8:03 AM ^
As much as I like them sucking at sports, it's valuable to the state of Michigan that MSU not be a total dumpster fire as an academic enterprise. If their idiot AD is somehow robbing the academic departments (even indirectly), that's harming our state's future workforce.
So yes, we should care. I want MSU to be a dumpster fire on the field, but I also want them to be a solid academic institution. Those goals are not incompatible.
October 3rd, 2022 at 6:29 PM ^
Not wanting MSU to suck because of cachet for the state is != to saying MSU is misusing taxpayer dollars. The latter of which is the premise I was replying to.
October 3rd, 2022 at 12:43 AM ^
I was texting my younger brother, a spartan grad, yesterday. He said that from a certain perspective, you could argue that Kenneth Walker’s brilliance ended up killing their program, because he is the only reason Tucker got that big contract
October 3rd, 2022 at 2:21 AM ^
How long before we start hearing about portal related tampering?