Ohio State University hired Urban Meyer as its football coach Monday, giving him one of the richest contracts ever in college sports — the latest indication that the big business of college football is undeterred by the nation’s broader economic woes or by concern about the prominence of sports on campus.
The contract includes $4 million in base salary, bonuses — for everything from players’ graduation rates to playing in a national championship, up to $700,000 annually — and lump payments in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The deal is worth more than three times the $1.32 million that the university’s president, E. Gordon Gee, made in 2010, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Mr. Meyer and Ohio State reached the lucrative deal amid a chaotic year in college athletics. The University of Miami was rocked by a report that a donor lavished football players with gifts for years; and longtime assistants for the Penn State football and Syracuse men’s basketball teams are facing allegations that they sexually abused young boys. Several other prominent programs are being investigated by college athletics’ governing body, the N.C.A.A., for myriad violations.
Even the Buckeyes await potential N.C.A.A. sanctions because players traded memorabilia for cash and tattoos, which led to the ouster of Jim Tressel as their coach six months ago.
Still, the college football arms race shows no signs of slowing. To replace Mr. Tressel, Ohio State will invest at least $26.65 million over six years in Mr. Meyer, 47, who won two national championships at Florida. That will include an annual automobile stipend, a golf club membership, 50 hours of private jet use and 12 tickets to each home game.
“It’s symbolic of the condition we’re in,” said William C. Friday, the president of the University of North Carolina system from 1956 to 1986. “There’s an unrestrained salary march, where universities are trying to superimpose an entertainment industry on an academic structure. Any salary in that range is excessive.”
Even Mr. Gee, the university president who hired Mr. Meyer on Monday, has described the system as broken. In an interview with The New York Times in August, he said: “College athletics has gotten beyond itself. Do I think it’s broken? Yes.”
On Monday, Mr. Gee called Mr. Meyer’s contract “a mark of our dignity and nobility.”
“I’m not certain I’ve ever made as much as a football coach,” Mr. Gee said in a telephone interview. “We live in a world of markets and opportunities. A number of surgeons here make more than I do. I’m about having the best physics faculty, the best medical school faculty and the best football coach.”
Mr. Friday was a co-founder of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. He watched as shoe companies paid large sums to coaches, as broadcast deals boomed. What Mr. Friday called the “invasion of money for commercial television” started about 10 years ago, he said.
Now, by any financial measure, college football has never been more prosperous. Five sports conferences have signed billion-dollar broadcast deals, fueled by the popularity of football.
In the Pacific-12 Conference, where games were once shown on national networks and local channels, officials have decided to create six regional networks instead. The template: the network for the Big Ten Conference, which includes Ohio State. The Big Ten network, according to SNL Kagan, a research firm, earned $227.1 million for the conference in 2010.
Contracts for college football coaches have increased at a similarly rapid pace. If Mr. Meyer reaches his benchmarks for bonuses, he will be among — and may even surpass — the upper echelon of college football coaches: Mack Brown at Texas, Nick Saban at Alabama, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Les Miles at Louisiana State.
Mr. Gee said that according to Ohio State’s data on college football coaches’ salaries, Mr. Meyer would rank fourth among his peers, emphasizing that much of Mr. Meyer’s bonuses is tied to academics and his staying at O.S.U. for all six years.
The contract includes $4 million in base salary, bonuses — for everything from players’ graduation rates to playing in a national championship, up to $700,000 annually — and lump payments in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The deal is worth more than three times the $1.32 million that the university’s president, E. Gordon Gee, made in 2010, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Mr. Meyer and Ohio State reached the lucrative deal amid a chaotic year in college athletics. The University of Miami was rocked by a report that a donor lavished football players with gifts for years; and longtime assistants for the Penn State football and Syracuse men’s basketball teams are facing allegations that they sexually abused young boys. Several other prominent programs are being investigated by college athletics’ governing body, the N.C.A.A., for myriad violations.
Even the Buckeyes await potential N.C.A.A. sanctions because players traded memorabilia for cash and tattoos, which led to the ouster of Jim Tressel as their coach six months ago.
Still, the college football arms race shows no signs of slowing. To replace Mr. Tressel, Ohio State will invest at least $26.65 million over six years in Mr. Meyer, 47, who won two national championships at Florida. That will include an annual automobile stipend, a golf club membership, 50 hours of private jet use and 12 tickets to each home game.
“It’s symbolic of the condition we’re in,” said William C. Friday, the president of the University of North Carolina system from 1956 to 1986. “There’s an unrestrained salary march, where universities are trying to superimpose an entertainment industry on an academic structure. Any salary in that range is excessive.”
Even Mr. Gee, the university president who hired Mr. Meyer on Monday, has described the system as broken. In an interview with The New York Times in August, he said: “College athletics has gotten beyond itself. Do I think it’s broken? Yes.”
On Monday, Mr. Gee called Mr. Meyer’s contract “a mark of our dignity and nobility.”
“I’m not certain I’ve ever made as much as a football coach,” Mr. Gee said in a telephone interview. “We live in a world of markets and opportunities. A number of surgeons here make more than I do. I’m about having the best physics faculty, the best medical school faculty and the best football coach.”
Mr. Friday was a co-founder of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. He watched as shoe companies paid large sums to coaches, as broadcast deals boomed. What Mr. Friday called the “invasion of money for commercial television” started about 10 years ago, he said.
Now, by any financial measure, college football has never been more prosperous. Five sports conferences have signed billion-dollar broadcast deals, fueled by the popularity of football.
In the Pacific-12 Conference, where games were once shown on national networks and local channels, officials have decided to create six regional networks instead. The template: the network for the Big Ten Conference, which includes Ohio State. The Big Ten network, according to SNL Kagan, a research firm, earned $227.1 million for the conference in 2010.
Contracts for college football coaches have increased at a similarly rapid pace. If Mr. Meyer reaches his benchmarks for bonuses, he will be among — and may even surpass — the upper echelon of college football coaches: Mack Brown at Texas, Nick Saban at Alabama, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Les Miles at Louisiana State.
Mr. Gee said that according to Ohio State’s data on college football coaches’ salaries, Mr. Meyer would rank fourth among his peers, emphasizing that much of Mr. Meyer’s bonuses is tied to academics and his staying at O.S.U. for all six years.
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