Pressdog.com

How about some real
market-based coaching salaries?

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 11/30/02)

In Iowa this year, we’ve had the bad fortune to have success on the gridiron.

Both the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State University Cyclone football squad did well this year. The Hawkeyes really rocked finished 10-1 and went 10-0 in the Mighty Big 10. The Cyclones started off great, but then horked up their last few games before losing he home finale to the mighty University of Connecticut.

Now I’m a graduate of tiny Morningside College in tony Sioux City, Iowa, so I got no personal interest in the Hawkeyes and Cyclones, aside from the fact that they both live in Iowa and some of my friends are alumni. Nice to see people back in the TV network studio at New York have to say the word "Iowa" on the College Halftime Game Day Scoreboard Brought to You by Frito Lay.

The thing of it is, all this success is going to cost me. Every time the universities win a lot of games somebody gets hit up for cash. New indoor practice facilities. Remodeled stadiums. $500,000 more for coaches. It’s almost enough to get those of us who aren’t rabid fans or who graduated from one of Iowa’s largely ignored small colleges (Go Morningside!) to hope the universities have "limited success."

In marketing, timing is everything. So the best time to ask for cash is when you have the state in a grand mal froth over your success. Witness University of Iowa’s athletic director Bob Bowlsby’s timing on announcing a major push to remodel football stadium in the midst of Iowa’s possible Rose Bowl trip.

Hey, I give Bowlsby credit. Strike while the iron (or donors) are hot (or frothing). And if he can raise the $90-odd million from private donors or people willing to pay the ticket prices, more power to him. Build a retractable dome if you want. Knock yourselves out.

But I knew the coach’s salary stuff was coming. You could just feel the tug at my wallet increase with every victory. When Iowa State men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy and Iowa’s Steve Alford won everything in sight a couple years ago, BAM -- payday! So why should the grid coaches (and their dozen or so assistants) be any different?

I’m sure the news stories on a "compensation enhancement" for Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz are on their way, but most recently our local paper carried stories about Iowa State’s Dan McCarney being in line for a paltry 44% to 60% hike. (Of course this was before ISU peed the last two games down their legs.)

And I wouldn’t complain if university athletics were self-supporting. How can you complain if McCarney gets a cool million a year for coaching football if the program rakes in way more than that?

But even though football and baskeball rake in more than they spend, university athletics as a whole cost taxpayers $9 million a year and students another $3.5 million in fees. Well that’s a football of a different color.

It’s not that I blame the coaches for wanting to be paid commensurate with the "marketplace." It’s just their selective embracing of the marketplace that bugs me. Oddly, we don’t hear much of the marketplace talk when the teams go 4-7.

So here’s my market-driven compensation proposals:

Option 1: Pay the coaches per victory. Give the football coaches a scant $110,000 per victory. For most Iowans winning just one game would be like hitting the lottery. But if you want the meeeeyun dollars, you gotta win 9 (not counting the patsy non-conference games).

Option 2: Give coaches a percent of the gate. It’s kind of like paying per win, because everyone knows winning packs them in. So figure out a nice percentage and cut the coach in. If nobody shows, they don’t get paid as much.

Option 3: One-year contacts. Get together after the last game and say, "Hey, you rocked this year! Next year you get a million!" or "Hey, you were horrid this year. Next year you get a measly $350,000." The problem with the multi-year contracts is you give the coach a dump truck full of money for going 10-1, lock him in for three years and then still pay the big cash when the team goes 2-9, 5-6, 4-7. Not very market-driven if you ask me. Or the old fallback:

Option 4: Raise ticket prices. Let those entertained by the coach and athletes pay the bills. Big U tickets already fail my personal cost-benefit analysis, but there are plenty willing to pay. Let them pony up.

The thing is you know the coach will get the major cash no matter who squeals about it. The bottom line is if you win a lot you get paid a lot. Why? Because winning makes sports-obsessed fans open their wallets and brings bales of TV and league cash to the universities. Fair enough.

But if the teams start to stink, will we get some of those salaries and facility expenditures back? Probably not. I just wish "market-based compensation" worked the same way for the rest of us.

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