Here's the list of highest-paid public employees:
1.$11.1 million - Nick Saban, University of Alabama football coach
2.$7.75 million - John Calipari, University of Kentucky basketball coach
3.$7 million - Jim Harbaugh, University of Michigan football coach
4.$6.4 million - Urban Meyer, Ohio, Ohio State University football coach
5.$5.8 million - James Franklin, Pennsylvania, Penn State football coach
6.$5 million - Willie Taggart, Florida, Florida State football coach
7.$5 million - Kirk Ferentz, Iowa, University of Iowa football coach
8.$5 million - Scott Frost, Nebraska, Univeristy of Nebraska football coach
9.$5 million - Tom Herman, Texas, University of Texas football coach
10.$4.875 million - Chris Petersen, Washington, University of Washington football coach
(This list goes up to 50, click on the site)
Actually, Saban is worth it from a capitalist/free market point of view.
Ask yourself how much revenue does he bring BACK to the university and state of Alabama. Is it more than his salary? Is it more than the price of his salary plus the entire UA football program?
It is!
The last good numbers I could find where from 2018, but Alabama athletics brought in a school record $177 million in revenue. Most of it (60%) is from the football program alone.
That’s about $106,200,000.
One story at al.com (notoriously left leaning) says UA spends $62 million on the football program total.
Saban knows how to win, and win big, with the most world trophies of any college football coach. If he left UA, they’d probably lose more, and then the lost revenue would be bigger than his salary costs.
We’ll never know 100%, but that’s my educated opinion.
List did not include Chip kelley at ucla...23 mill over 5 years(he must do outside promotional work) to get the salary. Clay Helton at southern cal gets about 4.5 mill per year.
....we spend way too much on football...wonder what the salaries would be without tv.