Show Me The Money

Have you ever wondered what UCLA pays Karl Dorrell to coach the football team? I'm sure you've heard about things like bonuses, salaries, other-income, and the like. Well, I got a copy of the contract and figured I'd break it all down for you.

USA today has a great flash application that gives you information on all the division 1 college coaches and how much they get paid. The complete list of coaches compensation was updated in 2005. It is very interesting and it includes the actual text of the contracts themselves. The application also lets you sort the data so you can see which coaches are getting paid relative to each other.

Here is a PDF of Karl Dorrell's contract as of 2005. I'm not sure if there is a later version, but I doubt things have changed that much in two years. I'll warn you, the first few pages are very hard to read. They are addendum to the original 2003 contract. The addendum changed some of the monetary compensation for salary and bonuses. I've managed to work my way though the garbled text and I've compiled a list of the highlights of his overall contract.

(I'll preface this by saying I'm not a lawyer and there might be subtle nuances that I am missing).

Annual Compensation

The way the contract is structured, Karl Dorrell gets paid through two different channels. He is hired directly by the University to coach the football team. The other channel is that Karl Dorrell's company, KJD8 Enterprises, is contracted with the University to handle things like speaking engagement, TV interviews, and promotional and fund raising activities. I think this is done, (and again, I'm no lawyer), to bypass some salary limitations that the UC System might impose. Basically, this allows Dorrell to get paid more money but it has to come through this song-and-dance routine. I'm sure Jeff Tedford and other coaches have to do the same thing.

Date of Contract: August 29, 2005
End of Contract: January 15, 2011.

Karl Dorrell Base Salary: $150,000.
KJD8 Salary: $350,000.
KJD8 Royalty: $225,000.
----------------------------
Total: $725,000

Now, there is a paragraph in the contract that says his base salary can be raised at any time. USA today said the base salary was $181,000 in 2005. I'm not sure where they got that number, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm just sticking with the $150,000 that is in the contract text. What's $31K among friends, anyways.

Bonuses

Now the incentives and bonuses are interesting. These are additional payments that Dorrell can receive in addition to the $725,000, he's getting in his basic salary. I think it is kind of strange that there are no incentives for actually winning bowl games (with the exception of the National Championship game). Maybe that is why the Bruins are 1-3 in bowl games under Dorrell.

Coach of the Year: $50,000
5-year-bonus, if still coach in 2010: $500,000 (prorated if fired without cause before 2010)

Plays in National Championship game: $100,000
Win National Championship game: $150,000

Plays in BCS game: $50,000 or
Plays in PAC-10 Bowl (paying UCLA $1M or more): $25,000 or
Plays in Other Bowl: $15,000

Undisputed PAC-10 champs: $50,000 or
PAC-10 co-champs: $40,000

Final Coaches Poll rank (top-10): $30,000 or
Final Coaches Poll rank (top-25): $15,000

Graduation rate (70% - 75%): $30,000 or
Graduation rate (75% - 80%): $40,000 or
Graduation rate (> 80%): $50,000

Regular Season Wins (8): $15,000 or
Regular Season Wins (9): $30,000 or
Regular Season Wins (10): $45,000 or
Regular Season Wins (11): $60,000 or
Regular Season Wins ( > 11): $75,000

Getting Fired

Since Dorrell getting fired is the hot topic these days, I looked into the sections of his contract that talk about getting terminated. This is my understanding (again, I'm not a lawyer) of what it says:

Fired With Cause

While many fans would say that the teams performance over the years is a good reason to fire Dorrell, the contract lays out precisely what would be considered cause for termination. Pretty basic stuff, I would think. If he does any of this stuff then he basically isn't entitled to any money and the contract is void.

1. Any serious or significant violation of NCAA rules.
2. Theft, dishonesty, misappropriation of University property, fighting, insubordination, serious misconduct, or lack of judgment that has a significant or serious adverse effect on the University.
   
3. Committing any crime, act or other involvement that reflects unfavorably upon the University's reputation.
   

Dorrell is a pretty stand up guy, so I doubt any of the above items would be violated. That leads us to the other section.

Fired Without Cause

More than likely, UCLA would have to fire Dorrell without cause. In that scenario, the University has to pay out compensation to Karl for ending the contract early. I'm going to assume that he would be fired at the end of the year, just to make the math simpler; if he got fired earlier, there would be proration of some of the payouts. Here is what would be owed:

1. Pay the base salary through January 2011.
   
2. Pay a prorated amount of the 5-year-bonus.
3. Pay one additional year of the KJD8 salary and royalties.
   

By my math, if UCLA fired Dorrell at the end of this season they would owe him 3-seasons base salary ($450,000) ,plus 2 years prorated value on the 5-year-bonus ($200,000), plus one additional year for his KJD8 income ($575,000). So $1,225,000, or thereabouts, just to hand Dorrell his pink slip.

There are a ton of other details in the 31 page document and you can download it yourself and take a look. Really, I think my summary catches the major points. Now, I'm going to go and do some analysis, on the USA Today numbers, and see what kind of correlation there is between paying head coaches well and winning programs. Look for that in a future post.