Matt Ishbia really isn't footing most of the bill for Mel Tucker
He says he gave 14 million for the contract. That leaves 81 million which is presumably being footed by MSU.
November 23rd, 2022 at 6:54 AM ^
Goes to show you can't buy class with any amount of money.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:27 AM ^
You can buy first class seats on a flight and tell yourself it's the same thing.
November 23rd, 2022 at 6:56 AM ^
The contract is a huge mistake no matter who is paying for it, because he’s a horseshit coach. It is the silver lining in that loss to MSU last year.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:25 AM ^
Is it really Tucker's fault that the Spartan administration offered him the contract he has?
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:56 AM ^
C'mon, you can't blame MSU admin. There were at least one other teams ready to offer at least a quarter of what MSU offered Tuck. Gotta put a ring on it!
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:59 AM ^
Who said it was?
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:41 AM ^
Well, hello, new wallpaper.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:13 AM ^
Maybe it was just Harbaugh playing 4D chess with their program trajectory. 🤣
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:59 AM ^
The real silver lining to the loss last year was we still beat OSU, won the Big 10 and went to the CFP. Their blood was boiling!
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:40 AM ^
MSU giving Tucker a guaranteed 10-year contract after that game reminds me of OSU hiring John Cooper after he beat us at ASU.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:57 AM ^
I'm pretty sure you meant "ASU".
November 23rd, 2022 at 12:10 PM ^
Whoops - yes.
November 23rd, 2022 at 6:56 AM ^
So, the source itself debunked the idea that he donated most if not all of the contract. No wonder MSU is fighting to block FOIA. How are their administrators, trustees and fans going to spin this? That is too much money to be funded by the school on their own.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:20 AM ^
How is it to much money? Next year the big ten payout is going to be 100 million a year. The athletic department will have more than enough money to cover it. If they want to waste that money on a crappy coaching hire, that seems fine with me.
November 23rd, 2022 at 9:07 AM ^
So they knew all that B1G adding USC and the new contract etc before they signed the contract?
Regardless, it is still too much money based on the going market rate. They were paying more than top tier coaches were getting for a coach who had a career average of .500
November 23rd, 2022 at 1:51 PM ^
They certainly new they were getting a bigger TV deal and regardless of what they knew, my statement stands. I did not say it was smart, just that they would have more than enough money to cover it.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:40 AM ^
That is too much money to be funded by the school on their own.
How do you figure? $9.5 million per year is a pretty insignificant drop in the bucket for a p5 athletic program. With the donor chipping in, it’s now $8.1 million.
Now, it may not be a wise use of that money. But that’s a separate debate altogether. If MSU has trouble generating $8 million dollars per year, they have some major issues to sort out that go beyond the field of play.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:56 AM ^
It's not just the 8 million dollars for the head coach.
They have a top 5 assistant pool salary in the nation and they just lost to Indiana. They are way overpaying for these guys.
I mostly just think it's funny tho
November 23rd, 2022 at 12:32 PM ^
Right, I agreed it wasn’t a good use of the money. That’s not what I was debating and that’s a separate issue entirely.
I’m arguing against the claim that this is somehow too much money for a school to generate on its own. That’s just not true.
November 23rd, 2022 at 10:34 AM ^
How do you figure? $9.5 million per year is a pretty insignificant drop in the bucket for a p5 athletic program. With the donor chipping in, it’s now $8.1 million.
Insignificant? That's just plain wrong. You have to look at the entire Athletics Department Spending. Check out MSU's R&E for athletics in 2021 - they are $15MM in the hole.
Looking at things in that context, Tuck's $9.5MM contract is a HUGE deal.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:01 AM ^
Athletic department budgets aren't trustworthy. They always break even or run a deficit. That's not to say that the Tucker deal is a good one, or that college coaching salaries aren't ridiculous of course.
November 23rd, 2022 at 12:40 PM ^
Nah, YOU need to look at the entire athletics department spending. A large chunk of their “spending” is simply a write-off to balance the budget for both the Athletics Department and the school itself.
For example, schools are charging athletic departments for the scholarship cost of the athletes. Now obviously, the athletic departments aren’t actually paying the school $30k+ for each full-ride scholarship an athlete gets. But it’s being included in the budgets.
If you think the MSU Athletics Department is ACTUALLY operating at a $15m loss, I don’t know what to tell you. They bring in way more money than they’re actually spending.
Also, the $8.1 million isn’t money that has to be generated on top of their deficit already. Coaching salary is already part of those expenses. So any additional costs to the previous contract are what needs to be generated. So what, $3 million maybe? Yeah, that’s a drop in the bucket in an athletic budget over $100 million.
November 23rd, 2022 at 10:56 AM ^
Well, they did cut their swimming program. While not a major sport, most schools have a swim team, even in D3. Granted it was done before Tuck's big contract, but they're now trying to justify reinstatement. His contract makes it that much more difficult to do so.
Assuming they have the same results over the next few years, this can't help the finances of the athletic department as a whole.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:43 AM ^
They can afford to pay his salary, I imagine. But the problem is if he flops as a coach. If you fire him, you've got to pay his contract (it's apparently fully guaranteed) and pay a new coach's, too. That's a lot of dead money. The contract pretty much forces them to stick it out with Tucker for a long time.
November 24th, 2022 at 4:44 AM ^
If MSU has trouble generating $8 million dollars per year, they have some major issues to sort out that go beyond the field of play.
Just ask the MSU swimming and dive team how broke MSU is for a $2.5 million a year program.
November 24th, 2022 at 12:56 PM ^
Cutting a program that is dead weight financially doesn’t mean they can’t afford it. Just because you CAN afford to keep propping up a program that is hemorrhaging money, doesn’t mean it’s a good investment to do so. The ROI on a football coach is significantly higher than a swimming and diving team.
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:05 AM ^
Id love to get paid insane amounts of money with a short history of just ok performance.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:15 AM ^
Oh no you don't. I already volunteered to let them hire me for half that amount and then fire me shortly thereafter. I did put in a clause about making stupid commercials though. There may be an opening there.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:29 AM ^
Okay, LB. I'll take your idea in the transfer portal and get hired as their next coach on the same conditions.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:22 AM ^
"OK" is being generous. He's facing his third sub-.500 season in four years of college coaching. 2021 is an outlier. I think he's trending into "bad" coach territory.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:59 AM ^
My dream job is being a fired P5 head coach
November 23rd, 2022 at 10:45 AM ^
Finally realized what Charlie Weis meant by his "decided schematic advantage"
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:07 AM ^
John L Tucker is still a horseshit coach
November 23rd, 2022 at 12:10 PM ^
edit: never mind
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:09 AM ^
We’ll get more clarity when the contract becomes public. Do we know when FOIA release is scheduled?
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:10 AM ^
You can’t spell 14 miLLion and MeL without multiple L’s
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:18 AM ^
Pete this season, it’s spelled “at least” like this…. miLLLLLLion…. You need to pronounce it like Dr Evil would…
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:20 AM ^
I agree, 6 to 7 L’s has a better ring to it, and it’s also more accurate.
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:15 AM ^
If Matt isn’t paying a ridiculous amount of his salary, who is?
November 23rd, 2022 at 10:14 AM ^
"bUt It'S NOt tHe uNivERsItY'S mOnEY!"
November 23rd, 2022 at 10:39 AM ^
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Magic Johnson kicked in some cash. They have other donors, just not as high profile.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:47 AM ^
Well, they're not a total charity case. They've got the very lucrative Big Ten TV contract, plus the revenue from their 75,000-seat stadium.
The problem is that this contract is guaranteed, which will make it very expensive to fire him.
November 23rd, 2022 at 7:21 AM ^
It seems as though everyone is jumping off Mel Tucker's sinking ship, even the guy who financed its construction.
November 23rd, 2022 at 8:03 AM ^
Doesn't matter... MeLLLLLL will be rowing that dinghy all on his own for another 5 years, at least. Nobody - not MSU, not any donors - will spend $85M on a buyout. So as long as MeLLLLLL has an agent worth a nickel he's not leaving on his own or with any settled buyout that differs from the contract. They're stuck. I say 5 years because, at some point, the buyout cost comes down to a more affordable amount. Is that 5 years? Four? Seven? I dunno, but it will become sustainable at some point.
The question left to be answered is how far a coach like MeLLLLLL can crater a program before he can be reasonably removed? A few more years like this one... Would MSU ever be able to recover?
November 23rd, 2022 at 9:39 AM ^
This is pretty much their only option. He is going to be their coach for the rest of the decade. Hopefully he continues to be mediocre at best with 6 it 7 wins the best they can hope for. Historically that is where that program is anyway
November 23rd, 2022 at 9:01 AM ^
Ishbia trying to protect his own reputation as a business man. No one wants to take responsibility for the worst coaching contract in sports history.
November 23rd, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
Ishbia was born on third. These next couple years will tell a lot about how good he is at business.