What benefit is it to renegotiate/extend contracts with our coaches these days?
For the first time in all my days as a fan of Mason basketball, our Athletic Department executed nearly perfectly in terms of handling our basketball coaches and contract extensions. Our teams performed well and the school not only renegotiated with our coaches, putting the coaches in the top 1/3 of A10 pay, but, they started negotiations well before the season ended. I was so heartened by that on top of all the other moves our administration/athletic department has been making recently. We can’t really ask or much more of them than that can we?
What has it gotten us, though? Absolutely nothing. In fact, you could argue it has gotten us less than nothing since we have a much bigger coaching bill now.
Both coaches, almost immediately, tried to get a job at a different school after signing an extension just days earlier.
Extending their contract didn't seem to buy us any grace period or loyalty, even when one of them is an alumni and former player.
Regardless that we gave them massive raises, they were immediately looking for that next step up.
I guess you could argue that the increased pay limits the competing schools that they might go to, but, I am doubtful that they would make what would likely be a lateral move implied by that level of pay.
It appears obvious they are both going to jump at the first opportunity to make a decent jump up. That means we are pretty much in the same situation we were in before extending their contracts.
In the era where schools will be paying the athletes directly, does, it make sense to get into the arms race trying to keep our current coach when it doesn't seem to extend how long they actually stay at our school?
We are already rebuilding the entire roster almost every year, so, when the current coach leaves it isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be 4+ years ago.
We are now paying our coaches in total, roughly, $1.5M more per year than we would have been had we not extended them.
If, instead, you could redirect that money to fund the revenue share/NIL/pay (whatever we call it), that would be enough to put us in the top tier of the A10 in terms of money for roster building.
Would it be better to just sign the initial contract, and stick to that for as long as the coach stays and keep the savings for revenue sharing/NIL/athlete pay?
Even if we don’t do that, at a bare minimum, we need to start putting much better terms in the contracts For example, if Mason fired Tony tomorrow (April 10), we would owe him $9.5M. If he left Mason tomorrow, he would only owe us $1.2M. We should at least make it match what we have to pay him it we fire him. $9.5M would be a decent deterrent against all but the biggest of schools. $1.2M, not so much.
For the first time in all my days as a fan of Mason basketball, our Athletic Department executed nearly perfectly in terms of handling our basketball coaches and contract extensions. Our teams performed well and the school not only renegotiated with our coaches, putting the coaches in the top 1/3 of A10 pay, but, they started negotiations well before the season ended. I was so heartened by that on top of all the other moves our administration/athletic department has been making recently. We can’t really ask or much more of them than that can we?
What has it gotten us, though? Absolutely nothing. In fact, you could argue it has gotten us less than nothing since we have a much bigger coaching bill now.
Both coaches, almost immediately, tried to get a job at a different school after signing an extension just days earlier.
Extending their contract didn't seem to buy us any grace period or loyalty, even when one of them is an alumni and former player.
Regardless that we gave them massive raises, they were immediately looking for that next step up.
I guess you could argue that the increased pay limits the competing schools that they might go to, but, I am doubtful that they would make what would likely be a lateral move implied by that level of pay.
It appears obvious they are both going to jump at the first opportunity to make a decent jump up. That means we are pretty much in the same situation we were in before extending their contracts.
In the era where schools will be paying the athletes directly, does, it make sense to get into the arms race trying to keep our current coach when it doesn't seem to extend how long they actually stay at our school?
We are already rebuilding the entire roster almost every year, so, when the current coach leaves it isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be 4+ years ago.
We are now paying our coaches in total, roughly, $1.5M more per year than we would have been had we not extended them.
If, instead, you could redirect that money to fund the revenue share/NIL/pay (whatever we call it), that would be enough to put us in the top tier of the A10 in terms of money for roster building.
Would it be better to just sign the initial contract, and stick to that for as long as the coach stays and keep the savings for revenue sharing/NIL/athlete pay?
Even if we don’t do that, at a bare minimum, we need to start putting much better terms in the contracts For example, if Mason fired Tony tomorrow (April 10), we would owe him $9.5M. If he left Mason tomorrow, he would only owe us $1.2M. We should at least make it match what we have to pay him it we fire him. $9.5M would be a decent deterrent against all but the biggest of schools. $1.2M, not so much.