The other guy who wrote about the Tony Bennett contract extension that has him connected to UVA through, most likely, the 2030-2031 season, thinks the biggest deal with it is that Bennett isn’t, for some reason, getting a pay raise.
Bennett’s salary, supplemental compensation and licensing pay – that last line item comes to $1 million all on its own – adds up to $4,020,287, with a 5 percent raise each July on the $670,049 base salary only, per the offer sheet that we asked for, and received, through a public-records request.
(UVA didn’t just give it to me. We don’t roll like that. I have to go through the lawyers.)
The salary is second among ACC coaches to Duke’s Jon Scheyer, whose annual compensation isn’t public information, like Bennett’s is, but Scheyer’s deal reportedly pays him north of $7 million a year.
Duke brings in a good bit more in revenues vis-à-vis UVA, bringing in a reported $47.7 million in fiscal year 2022-2023, far outpacing the $18.2 million that UVA hoops generated in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
So, Bennett ain’t getting a bad deal, relative to the money his program brings in.
If anything, Hubert Davis at North Carolina needs to fire his agent – he makes $2.6 million a year, running a program that ranks third in the ACC in annual revenues, bringing in $31.7 million in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
The buyout is the thing
I’m burying my own lede here, but what I found more interesting than the salary for Bennett was what I wrote about yesterday, the date that the extension that he signed on June 13 appears to have been presented, with the offer sheet that we were given access to noting the “effective date of proposed extension” as June 1, and then, two, the buyout term for Bennett if he were to decide to step down.
The offer sheet spells out, regarding the buyout, “no change – $250,000 for remainder of contract.”
What catches my eye there is that, because I’ve read, way too many times, the contract extensions that Bennett signed in 2015, 2017 and 2019, the buyouts were a lot higher in those iterations of his deal with the school.
To wit, his 2015 contract would have imposed a $3 million buyout on Bennett if he were to have stepped down before March 30, 2018, and his 2017 extension moved the date of that $3 million buyout back a year, to 2019.
The 2019 extension lowered the penalty to $1 million if he were to step down before March 15, 2020, with a sliding scale that ended at the $250,000 that we’re at now.
For comparison:
- If Brad Underwood leaves Illinois for another Big 10 job, he owes the school $30.6 million.
- If Nate Oats leaves Alabama for another job in the next two years, he owes his school $18 million.
- If John Calipari leaves Arkansas at any point in the next six years, he owes a more modest $6 million.
The $250,000 in Bennett’s contract might as well be nothing; the language in the 2015/2017/2019 deals notes that the money “constitutes a fair and honest reimbursement to the University for expenses, damages, losses and investment associated with the coach’s decision to resign.”
In essence, the money pays the search firm to vet the candidates to be the next guy.
Anything else?
Flip side from the buyout that Bennett would have to pay if he decides to bolt before 2031, the new extension spells out four longevity bonuses:
- $400,000 if Bennett is still at UVA on March 15, 2025.
- $1 million if he’s still at the school on March 15, 2027.
- $400,000 if he’s still around on March 15, 2029.
- $1 million if he’s still coaching at UVA on March 15, 2031.
That’s not nothing – a total of $2.8 million, on top of the $4 million annual compensation, and the performance bonuses:
- $400,000 for an NCAA title.
- $250,000 for a Final Four or Elite Eight.
- $100,000 for a Sweet 16, ACC Tournament title or National Coach of the Year award.
- $75,000 for a Top 10 finish in a national poll.
- $50,000 an ACC Coach of the Year award, Top 15 finish in a national poll or NCAA Tournament appearance.
- $25,000 for a Top 20 finish in a national poll.
Share
Chris Graham
