The UC Regents met last Thursday to discuss how they would deal
with hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts to the UC
system.
That same day, UCLA held a press conference to announce the
hiring of men’s basketball coach Ben Howland at the hefty
price of almost $1 million a year for seven years.
As plans for faculty pay increases are cut and students empty
their wallets to pay for rising fees, Howland will not only be
assuming the role of UCLA’s men’s basketball coach, but
also the role of one of the state’s highest paid
employees.
Why this discrepancy?
The answer lies in the fact that a negligible amount of
Howland’s $900,000 annual salary is coming out of public
funds. In fact, the men’s basketball program is so
self-sufficient it runs mostly off ticket revenue, donations, and
media and apparel contracts, and thus succeeds in remaining
independent of the up-and-down roller coaster of state and
university funding.
“We have various sources for generating income, including
ticket sales and private donations,” said Marc Dellins,
sports information director for the UCLA Athletic Department.
“There are no tax dollars going to the contract. It’s
all revenue generated by the athletic department.”
“The money we receive from registration fees does not at
all go toward men’s basketball or football,” confirmed
Associate Athletic Director David Secor, who added that of the $40
million used to support men’s basketball and football, about
$37 million is self-generated.
Producing the cash to pay Howland’s contract will be a
formidable feat. In addition to the annual pay of $900,000, Howland
can receive incentives for special achievements on and off the
court, such as trips to the Final Four or high graduation rates
among athletes.
All told, the athletic department could be paying Howland over
$1 million a year.
To put that in perspective: Former UCLA men’s basketball
coach Steve Lavin received an annual salary of $578,000 and, until
Howland, was the highest-paid UCLA basketball coach ever.
California Gov. Gray Davis, meanwhile, makes an annual salary of
$175,000.
Not that high-paid college basketball coaches are anything
new.
“Howland’s salary … is consistent in the context
of other programs in that nature in the country and even in the
Pac-10,” said Lawrence Lokman, assistant vice chancellor of
external affairs at UCLA. “It’s certainly consistent
with the quality, dignity and integrity of a program like
UCLA’s.”
Even at such a weighty price, Howland is not even close to being
the highest-paid college men’s basketball coach in the
nation, a cutthroat and powerful marketplace that some analysts
have likened to an “arms race.”
Billy Donovan at the University of Florida makes $1.4 million,
and Pittsburgh offered Howland $1.1 million if he would stay. Ben
Braun at University of California, Berkeley reportedly makes over
$1 million.
So long as the coaching market remains high-profile and highly
lucrative, coaches’ salaries at popular programs like UCLA
will not be going down anytime soon.
“The marketplace has changed dramatically,” said
Dellins. “Certainly when programs are successful, they
generate revenue for not only the athletic department but for the
university. I would think that Syracuse winning the national title
will generate revenues because of the exposure that school received
in the Final Four.”
One successful season at UCLA could send everything from apparel
to ticket sales through the roof, not to mention profitable
contracts with such broadcasting stations as CBS and ABC. Factor in
the outstanding legacy of men’s basketball at UCLA and the
program becomes a virtual cash cow.
In that respect, investing money in Howland’s contract
would make sense, Dellins says.
“We’re paying Coach Howland a certain amount that is
within the marketplace,” he said. “His successes will
be successes in turn for the university.”
So where did the investment come from?
UCLA boosters, donors who contribute specifically to the
university’s athletic program, reportedly gave $10 million to
help fund part of the contract. In addition, the school has a $19
million dollar contract with adidas that can be spent anyway the
athletic department deems fit.
This money, along with ticket and media revenue, is lumped into
one giant “pool” that the athletic department draws
from to fund all 22 varsity sports.
Of that pool, about 5 percent of it comes from student
registration fees, and Dellins denied any of that went to the
men’s basketball program.
“That money has historically gone toward other sports,
like the women’s rowing team,” he said.
This system explains why Howland would not have to worry about a
pay cut anytime soon. University faculty, however, are less
fortunate.
Since faculty members are not sponsored by adidas and are not
featured on ESPN highlight reels, they have to rely on state
funding to pay their salaries or take up private consulting or
publishing on the side.
Although faculty members are not facing pay reductions in the
coming year, they are not facing pay increases either, and there is
a possibility some faculty could be cut because of budget
shortfalls.
John Sandbrook, an assistant provost with the College of Letters
and Sciences, said that while professors may not be as
self-sufficient as a basketball program, they do generate vast
funds for the university through grants.
“They generate tens of millions of dollars, a lot more
than a basketball coach,” he said. “You have certain
faculty that are responsible for extraordinarily high research
grants in the millions of dollars.”
Last year, federal grant revenue from professors generated $452
million, and an additional $123 million was generated through
private grants. However, this grant money does not circulate back
into the professors’ paychecks but rather goes to the
university.
Sandbrook said there are many complex factors as to why
professors can’t be paid as much as a basketball coach like
Howland, but one of the key reasons is the problem of equality.
“You have one basketball coach. There are 800 faculty
members in the College of Letters and Sciences alone. There are
differences,” he said.