I wasn't referring to you here I was referring to what I've been reading on the board from various sources.

-We should pay the most for a FB HC as the best MAC academic school.
-Up the pay to keep TA away from a low level P5.
-We should be paying more than god dam Toledo.
-TA should have been extended yesterday (+l).

Then listing budget numbers without using an official source. The equity in athletic website has Ohio at 21.6 million off the 2020-2021 reporting year. Note that it was a pandemic year and much of the reason why its lower is that enrollment was down reducing the student fees. Student fees are listed in maximum but work more like a draw. They tap what they need to for operations.

https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search

That is why I'm saying if you go by the assumption Ohio doesn't want to significantly increase the budget and you use a rule of thumb that 10% is about the max Ohio would be willing to pay based on that budget than 2-2.2 million is the most Ohio could within reason pay on the size of the budget it has at the moment. That is a rubric on the high end or making TA the highest paid coach or within the Top 4 or top half which is closer to what you've suggested.

Many fans out there (not necessarily here) have their athletic egos tied to how much their coach is being paid. A reflection as to what level they are on. AAC pays their coaches higher than the MAC somewhat because of higher commitment level (they have the highest average student fees) but also due to athletic ego.

Its entirely possible the next Ohio president could decide to forget the small time approach we will pay for the hydro pools out of budget, finance the basketball practice facility and pay our HC football/basketball coaches 2 million plus per season. Pump the budget up to 35 or 40 million. But this is not the current stance in the athletic department at this moment.

No, not as "profitability" is normally defined here. That brings us to the question of why does Ohio have football at all? In fact, why do any G5 schools have football? Is it because there is a huge demand for football amongst the students? Does the faculty love football? Does the town love football? Is it mandatory that all universities must offer football?

The answer to all of the above could all be arguably answered in the negative. Students seem to enjoy football a little as a part of the fall atmosphere, but most definitely don't love it, based on the fact that many leave at the half, if they come at all. Most of the faculty seem opposed to football. If the town loved football, as you point out, there are enough people in the county that every game could be a sellout, but they are not. Most universities do seem to offer some football, but many top academic schools limit it to Division III, such as MIT, Claremont, or U. Chicago. Unlike dropping to FCS, a drop all the way to Division III does save money, a lot of money. Going to FCS seems to result in a worse financial situation, and many FCS schools seem to want to move up to FBS at the first opportunity, so a drop to FCS would probably be a bad idea.

So, that brings us back to the question of why do schools play football at all, if it is a money losing proposition with few benefits? There is only one plausible answer, as far as I am concerned, and that has to do with benefits that are harder to quantify. During my lifetime, a major shift has happened. Fifty years ago, most football powers were not top schools academically. There were schools notable for academics, and schools notable for football, and the two were very rarely both present in the same place. A few schools known for academics, such as Northwestern and Vanderbilt, could be found in major football conferences, but they were the exception, not the rule.

Today, the situation is very different. Contributions have flooded into the coffers of football powers, causing massive growth in their endowments, and also resulting in a boom of new building construction, both leading to a significant change to their academic reputations. Today, most of the B1G schools are known for having excellent facilities, excellent academics, and are known as excellent research institutions. This, in my opinion, is why schools are willing to lose money on G5 football: They believe that it makes them a more credible institution, and attracts donations to their general fund, and boosts their endowment. I think it galls Ohio administrators tremendously when a wealthy Ohio alum makes a huge donation to OSU simply because, after a lifetime of being an OSU fan, they feel a closer connection to OSU than to their own school.

If the above paragraph is true, then the problem with the statement that "Ohio football operates at a huge loss" is that it doesn't account for any effect that might happen to general giving for the University. When Ohio administrators elect to make a raise in pay to football or basketball coaches, or to offer either sport at all in the first place, I presume they are factoring in their knowledge of interactions with alums and donors, and their presumed impression of what would happen to general giving in the absence of the sports. Since they have more specific knowledge than I do, I tend to defer to their decisions, unless they made some decision that appears outrageous, such as paying a coach $2m a year, or something similar. With only 5 football coaches in FBS paid less than Albin, that certainly isn't the case.

We can still have football and pay the coach a reasonable sum. I think 350-500 is the right number. If a coach wants to leave for greener pastures, fine. We won’t have any trouble getting someone at that number. It appears we will always have middling fan support and attendance. Fine.

An economy where the long term inflation target is 2%+ also.

350k or 1 million its comparing 1 bag of peanuts to 3 bags of peanuts. Its not as an important as the length of the extension the bonuses (BTW I read Candle is up to 1.5 million with bonuses) and where the salary ranks relative in the conference.

A real basketball school pays its HC $3 million dollars and is in the tournament every year. Ohio is not a basketball school but basketball is a point of pride for the alums and largely due to The Convo.

The presidents were behind the decision to move the football program forward but its all been defensive moves chipping into the problem here and there instead of getting aggressive about it like UC did by dropping $100 million on facilities all at once.

Despite only spending next to the minimum Ohio has won its last 4 bowl appearances and 3 NCAA first round games. Has another MAC school even done that before no so this in my estimation is the new normal. A down year in basketball is now winning less than 20 and a down year in football is not winning the bowl game. Any coach in the country could get Ohio into a bowl game these days. Can they win the MAC though? TA and Frank couldn't do it and their regime isn't essential for success.

The question at Clemson has to be how much of that salary comes out of the budget or from private sources. My bet is a very big chunk

The college football landscape has and is changing rapidly. As some have mentioned in earlier posts, paying the outrageous coaching salaries was part of the “non financial compensation” that’s been going on until recently for the players. Upgrading facilities, food lounges and the idea that a program had the best coaches because they are paid the highest salaries is fast fading. NIL is changing all that and more changes on the way. We likely won’t be able to compete with the big boys because our market is not very big. A weekly Burrito Buggy stipend and a free admission to the Athena won’t get us the best players. So paying a coach “market” money makes no sense. A salary of 350-500 makes the coach one of the highest paid at the university. We likely get an up and comer who leaves either after failure or success. Or we get a guy who likes Athens and wants to be a lifer. I think you can live pretty good in Athens on 350-500k.

Make your check payable to Ohio University Athletics. Memo line should say “ Coach Albin”.

Albin is a coach who was paid in the normal range of FBS salaries, albeit at the lower end of the FBS range, because of the unusual starting situation, but who also had the advantage of continuity with the staff and players. It's quite a leap of logic to go from there to say that "If Ohio can go to a bowl with a coach paid at the lower end of the range of typical starting salaries, that shows that they can go to a bowl, even with a new coach hired with no continuity, and at substantially lower pay than any other FBS coach in America."

Could it happen? Sure. Could it happen that they would stuck for four years with a losing coach? Absolutely. But, if it did happen, then what? Then you are back to the point were the coach would be gone in a flash, unless he was raised up to within the normal FBS pay range. So, any good hires would leave quickly, and any bad hires would stick around for the full four years (unless Ohio paid to buy them out, which would defeat the point, since buying coaches out is even more expensive than paying a competitive salary in the first place).

Thus, paying far less than any other school in America virtually guarantees that, sooner or later, Ohio will be mired with a bad coaches for 4 years years at a time, perhaps with a good year mixed in occasionally. If Ohio football becomes like Akron football, it seems logical that attendance would fall to their level, which is about 9,000 per game (which is pretty good for a horrible team). That's a drop of about 7,000 a game from where they are now. If Ohio averages $10/ticket, that is $70k per game, or $420k for the year, dwarfing any savings on coaching staff.

If saving money is the goal, that will never work. The one thing that will work to really save money is to drop to Division 3, or NAIA. Then coaching salary can fall to perhaps $100-150k, plus it eliminates a lot of expenses in all aspects of the program, but also means that the foes are also focused on saving money, so the games are going to be competitive, and there is no reason to expect that Ohio will not have a chance to win. Will attendance drop? Sure, but the drop in expenses will be even greater than the loss of revenue. As I pointed out earlier, schools like U. Chicago (formerly in the Big Ten), Claremont, and M.I.T. have taken this approach. That way they have football in the air in the fall, but not at a huge expense.

If your employer replaced you with someone making 40% less, is it possible they would get someone better than you? Perhaps. Is it possible they would get someone terrible. Obviously that is possible, too.

The same goes for coaches. At 350k, yes, Ohio could get a coach. That would be a mid-FCS salary, so you'd think you could get a coach that would be the equivalent of one applying for an FCS job with limited experience. Would they be really good? Perhaps. Would they be terrible? Perhaps. As I said above, yes, occasionally they would be good, and Ohio would go to a bowl. Then what? They would expect to be raised up to an FBS salary, or they would be gone, and you are back where you started. When you pay well under the market price, the good ones leave, and the bad ones stay for the full length of the contract.

If you want to pay $350-500K for a head football coach, be prepared to drop down a division. This argument that a football coach shouldn't make more than the president is old and tiresome. While it may be correct in the grand scheme of things academically, it's just not how this sport works at this level anymore. You want to keep with the Joneses, these are the sacrifices you have to make. The only way to stop spending more on football is switching to FCS. In fact, no talent worth their salt would accept that contract.

350k is an upper tier salary for FCS. The MAC as a rule of thumb pays its coaches about 2x the FCS going rate since it is a higher level and that does afford the MAC a quality coach if they are dipping into the FCS ranks looking for one. The angle I agree with giacomo on is you could get a a high quality coach in the 350k-500k range. Kent did it with Sean Lewis and now of course he's moved on for more money as an assistant.

The question is what kind of coach is TA? Is see him as an 8-9 win type coach at this point rather than a 6-6 guy. 675k-850k is a fair on the next extension which places him in the Top 4 in the MAC. I just don't see him as a 10-12 win coach that the university has to extend ASAP.

If he won the MAC Championship by 30, the bowl by 30 and signed the #1 recruiting class in the MAC that would be different.