Bo Signs His Contract

by Husker Mike on Jan 19, 2008 10:51 PM CST in Nebraska Husker Football

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that Bo Pelini has signed a multi-year contract for $1.1 million a year.

Now, I'm not an accountant by any means, but I used to work on accounting computer systems many years ago. (On the other hand, it's been a few years since I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express...) But to my eyes, the changes in Lincoln might not cost nearly as much as we worried. Bear with me for a minute.

Harvey Perlman signed Steve Pederson to a five year contract at $500,000 a year, entitling him to a $2.2 million buyout. But his replacement will only earn $250,000 a year, which means that while Nebraska is going to take a huge budget hit this season, Nebraska will be money ahead for the next few years, as the AD's salary is half of what it was going to be.

Likewise, Pederson granted Bill Callahan a contract extension that paid him $1.75 million a season, entitling him to receive $3.125 million on Tuesday as his buyout. His replacement will earn $1.1 million, or a savings of $650 thousand a year. Over the next four years, Nebraska will save $2.6 million.

Yeah, the payoffs bite. The contract extensions these gentlemen were ill-advised, and Nebraska is going to pay the price. But the news isn't as bad as it seems, as not only did Nebraska get upgrades in the athletic director and head football coaches, the salaries went down meaning that the buyouts aren't going to cost nearly as much as we feared.

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The extensions

were just an old professional sports trick. Have a couple of mediocre seasons and continually feed the "we're impoving" lines, then when contract time comes around, WHAM-O, have a breakout year and force the "higher-ups" to give you a new contract or an extension.

Seemed to work out perfectly for Callasham.

by 96operator on Jan 20, 2008 2:37 AM CST reply actions

i

was surprised at Pelini's contract. $1.1 million, but I suppose that it's a little lower since he has no head-coaching experience.

It irks me that those two boobs cost us around $5M. It's very alarming that this much money has poured into collegiate sports and it's going to lead to a crisis at some point in the next few years.

Go Big Red!

by Jon Johnston on Jan 20, 2008 5:22 PM CST reply actions

It wont be that soon

that it leads to a crisis. The universities will just continue to raise prices of tickets and other things and then the tuition will rise etc., etc., etc., and we will just keep paying it because "it is our team and our school and we need to support it no matter what". When has there ever been a major uproar or anything over a raise in prices? You hear some grumbling and some bitching and moaning but most people just pay it and go to the game anyway, or someone else takes their place. Dont look for the salaries to go down or even taper off anytime soon.

by taflorom on Jan 23, 2008 7:45 AM CST up reply actions

interesting point

There's been quite a few problems with the cost of rising coach's salaries in the past. In fact, it's been an issue for a very long time.

The sheer amount of money coming into college football, salaries being part of it, will draw the attention of more people as time marches on, part of that people being the US Congress. They'll start wondering more and louder whether or not all this money pouring into the sport is a representation of the amateur nature of athletics, why Reggie Bush's jersey could make millions for USC while Reggie Bush didn't see a dime of it.

If the product continues to get worse, which it will (12th game against Podunk U), people may smarten up and not bother attending those games. Maybe not Nebraskans, but it will happen sooner or later if there are no changes. People won't pay for a lousy product.

It's like this mortgage problem... you can only leverage stuff to a point before it breaks. The failed mortgages represent less than 5% of the market, yet everything else is so leveraged it will send us into recession.

We'll see what happens.....

Go Big Red!

by Jon Johnston on Jan 24, 2008 12:00 AM CST up reply actions