re: LSU Can’t Ignore the Coming Coaching Salary Correction

Yep, you’re right — back in the day a big chunk of a HC’s “salary” was technically outside income (radio show, TV show, endorsements, camps, speaking, etc.). The school salary number wasn’t the full picture.

But that actually proves how far we’ve drifted. Now the guaranteed number itself is massive, and then you stack media money, bonuses, and buyouts on top of it. Schools moved from “supplementing” coach income to flat-out guaranteeing it up front at NFL levels — without a salary cap, without labor costs, and without contract discipline.

And that old model worked because players weren’t paid and the system had one major cost center.

Today you’ve got:

Player revenue sharing

NIL structure

Portal bidding

Rising staff salaries

Facilities arms race

Analysts/ops payroll balloon

Once labor costs enter the picture, the old “coach gets a giant guaranteed base AND everything else” setup can’t survive forever.

The nostalgia point is fair — but it also highlights why the current structure is overdue for correction.

Schools didn’t have to be disciplined before.
Now they do.

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Average NFL HC salary: $6.6M

Average SEC HC salary: $8.1M

Big Ten: $6.8M

ACC: $5.8M

College coaches — especially in the SEC — are getting paid more than NFL coaches. That’s not sustainable when you now have to pay the roster too.

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I don’t think you’re wrong overall about the need for a correction. However, it’s much more complicated and nuanced than you suggest.

The college revenue sharing cap is set based on 22% of average power conference athletic department revenue. The NFL salary cap is set based on 48% of league revenue. On top of that, NFL teams are for-profit entities while athletic departments are nonprofit. So when you account for players’ pay as a percentage of cost in the NFL, it’s actually more than 48%.

So let’s do some math. As of the most recent LLA audit, LSU football generated $108 million in revenue. 22% of that would be about $24 million, but that’s actually higher than the current revenue sharing cap ($20.5 million). If LSU were to spend the entire revenue sharing cap on football (ignoring all other sports) it’d equal about 19% of football revenue. That leaves 81%, or $87.5 million, for everything else.

If LSU were instead an NFL team spending 48% of revenue on players, it would amount to about $52 million in player salaries. That would leave 52%, or $56 million, for everything else.

So the “everything else” bucket for LSU football is $31.5 million (56%) more than it would be under an NFL revenue sharing setup. LSU can’t spend that money on players because of the cap. Assuming that the #1 priority is on-field success, you would then expect LSU to spend considerably more than a comparable NFL franchise on everything that affects performance - specifically facilities and coaches.

There’s another factor as well, which is that CFB revenues are still increasing pretty quickly. SEC schools are about to receive the first revenue distribution under the ESPN TV contract, which will give each school an extra $15 million per year. That number will likely go up again based on the 9 game schedule, 12-team playoff, and - eventually - 16-team playoff. The Venture Global deal for field logos is likely worth millions per year. LSU reportedly has a sponsor lined up for jersey patches if the NCAA allows it, which could be another $10+ million per year.

For every $1.00 of added revenue, only $0.22 will be spent on players (assuming the House settlement holds) over the long term. Thats going to apply some upward pressure on coaching contracts, even if it doesn’t fully offset the downward pressure from rev share in general.

Great breakdown — seriously. This is the most thoughtful counter anyone’s posted in the thread. And I agree with the core thing you laid out: CFB isn’t the NFL, and the 22% vs 48% revenue split absolutely matters. If schools have to spend the revenue gap somewhere, coaches and facilities are the logical outlets.

But here’s where the correction still bites even inside your framework:

The cap doesn’t stop NIL/collectives

Portal bidding isn’t going away

Donor fatigue is real when you’re funding rosters + buyouts

Assistant pool inflation is just as real as HC inflation

Admin/analyst/support staff costs have exploded

NIL departments and roster management staff now exist too

Meaning: even if the cap “only” allocates 19–22% to players, the total real player spend will still creep higher than the cap. Meanwhile, almost every cost bucket in college football has risen simultaneously.

The NFL has:

a mature spend model

defined contracts

real enforcement

collective bargaining

a fixed labor %

real financial discipline

CFB has:

donors behaving emotionally

no real contract discipline

a portal economy still unregulated

“arms race” spending mentality

new NIL operating costs on top

So yeah — revenues rising gives some cushion, but rising revenue doesn’t automatically equal infinite expense tolerance, especially once schools start getting audited under revenue-sharing structures.

Your math shows why the top guys may remain insulated.
My point is the pressure crushes the middle and upper-middle tier first — where the Tuckers, Jimbo deals, and panic hires live.

You don’t have to cut Kirby’s pay to reset the market.
You just have to stop paying Mel Tucker types like Kirby.

In other words:

The elite stay elite — the bubble bursts below them.

Both things can be true.

Exactly — that’s the direction. The sport is already halfway down the path, and pretending it’s going to turn back into 1998 is fantasy. Once labor costs, legal frameworks, and federal oversight get baked in, the college model is going to look more and more like the NFL with campuses.

And you're right: the only thing that could theoretically stop it is fans walking away. But nobody’s turning off LSU games. Nobody’s boycotting the CFP. The money isn’t shrinking — it’s exploding. ESPN, the playoff expansion, sponsorships, jersey ads, streaming deals… it’s all pushing CFB further toward a regulated pro model, not away from it.

We’re not voting with our wallets — we’re handing them over.
So yeah: what’s coming is coming. The only real choice is who adapts intelligently and who gets run over by the shift.

Franz, is that you?

Borghardt? No, but I did graduate with him.

10-4. I had to ask.

LSU can take a chance on a coordinator and pay less. It worked out for Ohio State, Oregon and Georgia. You better do your due diligence if you are going this route. It would save millions if it works out though.

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But here’s where the correction still bites even inside your framework:

The cap doesn’t stop NIL/collectives

Portal bidding isn’t going away

Donor fatigue is real when you’re funding rosters + buyouts

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Yeah, this is certainly part of it as well and I didn’t get into that piece of the puzzle. It’s nuanced for sure.

One issue is figuring out how to differentiate between athletic department funds and donor funds. In the NIL world it’s pretty simple - those are donor funds and the cap doesn’t apply to them.

But what about the athletic department’s direct expenditures? Player spending in that bucket is subject to the revenue sharing cap. So at face value it’s easy to assume that LSU’s entire $108 million on football revenue is “hard capped” for player spending.

I think reality is more complicated. On paper, LSU pays coaching salaries and buyouts. But we happen to know that boosters often pick up the buyout costs. The most recent LLA audit lists $27 million in contributions for football. Does that mean this entire pool of $27 million could be spent on players instead? Well.. that’s complicated even more by the fact that these are funneled/obfuscated through TAF. At least some of that $27 million is season ticket fees, which really can’t be redirected to NIL.

One way to simplify it is to assume that the active coaches’ salaries are paid from “athletic revenue” while buyouts are paid by “booster donations.” From that POV, it would indicate that active coaching salaries are OK as long as we are hitting the rev share cap, but coaching buyouts are inefficient due to the ability to redirect those funds toward players.

That’s still not quite right though, because TAF obviously does a ton of fundraising that isn’t tied to a specific buyout. If you take a step back though, it creates an interesting conundrum where theoretically the athletic department is better off if all private donations go to NIL instead. But then that’s much harder for them to manage..

And then there’s the fact that a booster willing to pony up $20+ million for a buyout may or may not actually be willing to use that same $20+ million for NIL. I said in another thread recently that the economy of college sports is just a mess overall. It becomes difficult to assume rational behavior for actors who are, quite often, entirely irrational.

There is a somewhat similar phenomenon in the NFL when it comes to quarterbacks. It’s different because of the structure, but similar in concept. Teams consistently draft QBs way higher than they should if behaving rationally, because winning the lottery on a QB can change the entire trajectory of a franchise. I think the same thing plays out in the CFB coaching market.

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Your argument falls apart here. BK is only paid $400,000 from LSU (athletic department). The remainder is from TAF which is a private non-profit. The revenue share has nothing to do with a private company.

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I don’t really think this part is relevant at all. It doesn’t really make any difference whether the funds are generated directly by the athletic department or “donated” to the athletic department by TAF.

The cap makes a difference, but not the source of funds.

ETA: TAF could just as easily fund revenue sharing if needed, as long as they have the income stream. It’s basically taking money out of one pocket to put in the other.