Wisconsin Chancellor: Harbaugh, Meyer overpaid
Jim Harbaugh is making $7 million at Michigan this season, including a $2 million one-time signing bonus, and Urban Meyer is making $5.86 million for defending national champion Ohio State. USA TODAY Sports asked Wisconsin chancellor Rebecca Blank what she makes of Big Ten peers who are paying their coaches so much.
“Those are the choices they make,” she said in an interview for a story about coaching salaries. “That really begins to threaten the whole sense that we are not professional athletic teams. I’m not terribly happy about the fact that they made those choices. That’s my opinion.”
.....
Blank understands market forces. She was acting secretary of commerce in the Obama administration and holds a doctorate in economics from MIT.
Nevermind that Harbaugh has likely, through ticket sales and merchandising, already generated revenue in excess of his total contract. Also ignore the fact that paying Harbaugh his market value has ZERO impact on the Unversity's academic side of the coin.
If you can forget those two factors, she has a fantastic point.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:31 PM ^
I can't seem to figure it out.
October 8th, 2015 at 8:47 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 9:10 PM ^
More proof that an economics degree and being appointed to a presidential cabinet don't mean jack sqaut.
If he were alive I'd ask the esteemed cabinet member with no real world experience to go talk to high school dropout Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, and get a real education.
October 8th, 2015 at 9:31 PM ^
This anti-credentialist position is more than a little extreme.
October 8th, 2015 at 9:48 PM ^
That's exactly why her career is based in the academic and political sectors, and not the private sector.
October 9th, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
Yes, because private sector = intelligent hardworkers and public sector = knuckle-dragging leeches, AMIRITE?
October 9th, 2015 at 2:14 PM ^
I'm not sure the reason for all these poster's backlash. I agree with her. I understand the "market" economics at hand, but college football and professional football are supposed to exist in separate markets altogether. The more that college athletics increase salaries, publicity, etc., the more that the line between amateur and professional atheltics decreases.
Name another amateur sport that pays its coaches as much as college football. What's more, the salaries beat out most professional sports. Notre Dame's new Showtime series is yet another example of these blurred lines.
Yet people wonder why these high school kids act like divas and celebrities--its because we give them that status. They are surrounded by all the same components that celebrities and professional athletes are surrounded by. In the end, it will be College Football's own fault when the term "amateur" gets removed from its title and it's left paying 17 year old kids millions of dollars.
October 9th, 2015 at 3:22 PM ^
"... college football and professional football are supposed to exist in separate markets altogether..."
There's your problem: you make this assumption which is, of course, not true at all as far as coaches are concerned. The football coaching markets are the same market.
October 8th, 2015 at 10:17 PM ^
Cause Alvarez just wants to coach the Rose Bowl so he keeps nudging his coaches out when they get a bid.
/s
October 9th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
as your AD willing to step in anytime an opening occurs in a bowl game, you wonder how the other half lives.
October 9th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
depending on the institution, is typically the highest paid position on campus including the president. And that evolution isn't because of salary demands made by the person holding the job. It's because market forces have led to it.
Harbaugh and Meyer's ROI justifies their salary levels at their respective schools or they wouldn't be paid as they are. In Harbaugh's case, Michigan hired the hottest coaching candidate in pro and college football, and paid accordingly.
And it's not as if school donors, whose alumni base includes the owners of two professional sport franchises, who have generously returned money to Michigan over time far exceeding the fractional salary base of its highest paid employee, don't recognize what the cost of top talent brings today. If anyone understands that, it's the guy who hired him.
What has changed the face of college football is the same thing that changed the face of pro football, television exposure and the enormous pull the college game has on the emotional wellspring of its followers. Michigan has the largest stadium and living alumni base in the nation, and this didn't just happen overnight.
Michigan used to be on the poor side in terms of coaching pay. Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler never cared about their salary level. Bo turned down a much higher paying job offer at Texas A&M to stay at Michigan.
Money in the game has grown with the expansion of AD budgeting and the escalation of the game in the public eye. It used to be that college football was treated like network baseball coverage. Now, virtually every college team in the nation in both FBS and FCS has the opportunity to be seen somewhere on cable TV or the internet. Coaching salaries have risen within that framework of growth, and the understanding that just like the arms race, if you want to be the best, you have to get the best coaching talent, and it costs serious coin.
October 9th, 2015 at 1:05 PM ^
and has an opinion on other things that would be nice to know about
October 8th, 2015 at 6:31 PM ^
It's just proof that Wiscy is so irrelevant that they can't understand why a football coach would be worth what Harbaugh or Meyer is being paid.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:31 PM ^
Paul Chryst is about as underwhelming a hire as Riley was at Nebraska.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:40 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 8th, 2015 at 7:48 PM ^
I'd take Riley over Chryst. Riley has at least had a few good years at a crap program in a hard conference. Chryst had a talented Pitt team in the later days of the Big East and weakend ACC and could never win.
October 9th, 2015 at 6:39 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 9:42 PM ^
I love UM and my second favorite is Pitt which has been mediocre for years including the past few with Chryst. They have some offensive talent in Tyler Boyd and James Conner but their defense was horrible as evidenced by their complete meltdown in the 4th quarter of their bowl game which was one of the worst things I've seen in watching football in my life.
Wisconsin will be sorely disappointed in Chryst, UM confirmed with Hoke that just because they are an alum it doesn't guarantee success and Wisconsin will realize the same thing as well.
October 9th, 2015 at 12:09 AM ^
Hoke is not a UM alum
October 9th, 2015 at 3:28 AM ^
October 9th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
to coach here.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:16 AM ^
I was highly disappointed in Chryst. He seems uninspiring and lost. He had Tom Savage, Devin Street, Tyler Boyd, and James Connor all on the same team and barely made a bowl, losing to the likes of Navy and average GA Tech in back to back weeks in 2013. 2014 was no better, even with a seemingly seamless transition at QB to Chad Voytik. I know fumbles and turnovers can, a lot of the time, be chalked up to dumb luck and that cycles around, but when they fumbled on four of their first six offensive snaps against GT in 2014, that pretty much convinced me he's not a head coach.
October 8th, 2015 at 9:45 PM ^
Michigan would and getting a much worse return on their millions. Sounds to me like she's jealous.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:33 PM ^
Yeah, well, the price of a college education is outrageous as well.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:31 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 9:39 PM ^
Look in the mirror, chancellor.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:33 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 6:36 PM ^
Blank (proper noun) stare is indeed the appropriate response, when it leads to underperforming coaches being replaced and their successors shooting out to 4-0 starts.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:39 PM ^
. . . In retaining their own Head Football coaches.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:36 PM ^
what happens to the $85 million annual revenue stream that the football program generates (on $25 million of costs) when fan enthusiasm for it is sinking and demand for the roughly ~$125 full cost/ticket (~median price) is almost sure to follow in the same direction.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:37 PM ^
Funny this comes out the day Wisconsin strikes the UA deal. Where does this lady think the money is going to go?
October 8th, 2015 at 6:37 PM ^
"Those grapes," said the fox, "surely are quite sour."
October 8th, 2015 at 6:37 PM ^
No? oh... ok.
October 8th, 2015 at 8:49 PM ^
Is she legal yet?
October 8th, 2015 at 9:14 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 10:31 PM ^
Had you really never seen/heard this before now?
If so, I envy you.
October 9th, 2015 at 12:10 PM ^
I've only ever seen it on this blog. Never heard of her otherwise.
October 9th, 2015 at 5:47 AM ^
Never those words sung sounding so ironically bored.
Such enui.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:38 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 6:40 PM ^
Of course you can't - perhaps I needed the /s tag.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:40 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 10:47 PM ^
I think her argument is - when the market gets that rich, universities should get out of it... because their job isn't to make money. Take a look at their mission statements.
October 9th, 2015 at 9:55 AM ^
Except that universities are not making money on sports, overall. Wisconsin isn't.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:43 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 8:38 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 6:45 PM ^
And yet, Michigan somehow manages to retain its reputation and maintain its standards for academic excellence even when its football program garners more media attention than the academic side. Sounds like a win-win to me.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:04 PM ^
The respect my UM degree gets says yes.
October 8th, 2015 at 8:44 PM ^
Comments and thoughts like her explain why wisconsin, while being a reasonably good school, is not will not be an elite academic institution. Well maybe when it comes to paying their administrators like her.
October 8th, 2015 at 9:07 PM ^