$55.2 million

$6.9 million per (including 400k 'completion bonus')

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11027430/nick-saban-new-contract-approved-alabama-crimson-tide-compensation-committee

The SEC is playing a game with which I am not familiar.

The crazy thing is he is worth every penny (economically speaking).

The SEC keeps talking about 5 conferences splitting off: the NCAA should just kick the SEC out now. They make a mockery of college sports. Let the SEC become a semipro league, it basically is anyway. Then the remaining conferences should raise their academic standards and get back to having true college student athletes. Then there would be a clear choice, go play in the SEC or another minor league or choose to be a college athlete.

The SEC's endless salary and facility growth is ruining college sports, its time to cut them loose and return sanity to college sports!

75bear;842321795 said:

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The crazy thing is he is worth every penny (economically speaking).

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Alabama earned $143 million in athletic revenue last year, so $6.9 million is quite a bargain.

DavisBear;842321798 said:

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Let the SEC become a semipro league, it basically is anyway. Then the remaining conferences should raise their academic standards and get back to having true college student athletes.

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Fact: Alabama's football players have performed much better in the classroom than ours have.

Yes, the University of Alabama is not on the same academic level as Berkeley. But I don't think it is fair to compare the classes that football players tend to take with the classes that normal students tend to take. At both schools, football players tend to eschew the difficult classes and majors.

There is no metric to compare the difficulty of the classes that football players take at different schools. So it is impossible to say how much harder it is to be a football player enrolled in American Studies or African American Studies at Cal, or in the same majors at Alabama.

We are just starting to raise our own academic standards. But I don't think we are in a position to criticize a program with a 978 APR.

The Pac12 and it's members are reaping the benefits of its new contract. The idea that we are innocent bystanders propelled forward by the evil SEC is ludicrous. We have the richest TV contract ever signed.

espn reported that the pac12 brought in more revenue than any other conference last year, and had the lowest attendance of the major conferences. heard it on sunday night baseball radio pregame. kind of crazy, but butts in the seats just don't matter like they used to. what's even crazier is that we bring 30-40k up to memorial, even when we suck, and all we have to do is field a decent team, and the place will be packed. even if it doesn't bring in that big a slice of the revenue pie, it sure helps the team to have a packed house. i miss those days.

We just paid our guy 2 million dollars per win per year. Saban and 6 million per year is a bargain.

I totally get that we are making more money now, etc.

However, I'm just saying that this out of control spending, a lot of it directly tied to having to compete with the SEC is just getting out of control. While I don't doubt that there are some kids at SEC schools who go to class, etc. it is hard to argue that on a whole the SEC cares much about student athletes.

All I am saying is just because they are continually jumping off the bridge, at some point maybe we should really think about where we are heading. I would argue that maybe there is some rationale in reconsidering if we just want to keep driving down the current path. I love college sports, but I just don't know if we are heading in the right direction.

Also, where do you think this increased revenue is going to go? We will spend it all and more on increased salaries and facilities. At the end of the day we will still be running a deficit.

I have a friend who is the head coach of a non revenue sport at a top SEC school. His pay/benefit package is crazy. His facilities are amazing. He has worked for top schools in the Big 10 and Pac 12 and he says that the resources he has at his disposal are mind boggling in comparison. I just say this because if we follow the SEC we will continue down this road that just doesn't seem sustainable.

I'm just saying that the Pac 12/Big 10 etc. should really think about whether or not we want to hitch our cart to the SEC. They seem to be implying that the other 5 big conferences are on board with demanding special treatment from the NCAA and having their own rules. I just question whether this makes sense for us or is this a chance to leverage our power, along with the Big 10, etc. and say screw you. We want to reign in spending a bit, have more limits on the hours spent practicing and turn a bit more towards having true student athletes compete. Just a thought to consider!

The Duke!;842321828 said:

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Fact: Alabama's football players have performed much better in the classroom than ours have.

Yes, the University of Alabama is not on the same academic level as Berkeley. But I don't think it is fair to compare the classes that football players tend to take with the classes that normal students tend to take. At both schools, football players tend to eschew the difficult classes and majors.

There is no metric to compare the difficulty of the classes that football players take at different schools. So it is impossible to say how much harder it is to be a football player enrolled in American Studies or African American Studies at Cal, or in the same majors at Alabama.

We are just starting to raise our own academic standards. But I don't think we are in a position to criticize a program with a 978 APR.

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http://www.brobible.com/sports/article/jadeveon-clowney-asked-hardest-college-class/

82gradDLSdad;842321846 said:

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We just paid our guy 2 million dollars per win per year. Saban and 6 million per year is a bargain.

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The return on investment on an excellent coach is fantastic. If you can sell 5000 more season tickets@$500 that's 2.5 million let alone ancillary benefits. Cal was printing money in Tedford's salad days

The Duke!;842321828 said:

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Fact: Alabama's football players have performed much better in the classroom than ours have.

Yes, the University of Alabama is not on the same academic level as Berkeley. But I don't think it is fair to compare the classes that football players tend to take with the classes that normal students tend to take. At both schools, football players tend to eschew the difficult classes and majors.

There is no metric to compare the difficulty of the classes that football players take at different schools. So it is impossible to say how much harder it is to be a football player enrolled in American Studies or African American Studies at Cal, or in the same majors at Alabama.

We are just starting to raise our own academic standards. But I don't think we are in a position to criticize a program with a 978 APR.

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I'm sorry, but that is complete BS. No it is not a fact that their players have performed much better in the classroom than ours have. It is a fact that they have a higher APR. Don't confuse that with performing in the classroom.

APR is a joke. All it means is that colleges need to fake it a little more to keep their teams off sanctions. No one needs to do better in the classroom. You just need to have professors willing to put a grade next to the football players' names on a list. Many schools, including Alabama, have been able to paper over every academic requirement the NCAA has ever come up with, with the exception of minimum test scores that are out of the school's control. If you think Alabama football players suddenly became scholars at the advent of APR, I have a bridge to sell you.

Cal has, with a few historical exceptions, never done a good enough job on academics within revenue sports. I am far more concerned with cleaning our own house. And that doesn't mean improving an easily manipulated metric like APR. It means graduating players at a rate consistent with the general student body in normal, non-football majors, neither of which we have ever done.

But I'm not going to put up with schools fraudulently passing guys through to keep their football team going, and then smiling and claiming ethical high ground over schools that won't use those practices to manipulate the statistics. I don't care what they do with their own academic reputation, but I'm not an idiot.

Cal should embrace what it is. We are lucky to be getting an equal share of the Pac12 proceeds. The tickets to all bench seats should be slashed by 80%. Fill the Memorial ( and Haas) with bodies. Limit the awful filler activities. Embrace successful student and faculty members in ALL fields. Try to appear a little more professional, but not corporate or commercial.

Not an easy task, but stress cheap and fun! The TV money will bridge the dark times. If it ever ends, we are f....d.

OaktownBear;842321927 said:

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You just need to have professors willing to put a grade next to the football players' names on a list.

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I have seen no evidence that Alabama has done this.

I have seen lots of evidence that Cal has done this. We were sanctioned by the NCAA and missed a bowl game for this very thing.

The Duke!;842321970 said:

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I have seen no evidence that Alabama has done this.

I have seen lots of evidence that Cal has done this. We were sanctioned by the NCAA and missed a bowl game for this very thing.

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Never mind that they spent a good chunk of the 2000s on probation, two bowl bans and lost 21 scholarships for paying players. It's academics where they decided to do things the right way.

socaliganbear;842321977 said:

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Never mind that they spent a good chunk of the 2000s on probation, two bowl bans and lost 21 scholarships for paying players. It's academics where they decided to do things the right way.

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:rollinglaugh:

We were given five years probation for professors giving away grades.

Alabama was given 5 years probation for a textbook scandal and other impermissible benefits.

Both teams had to vacate wins. Both teams lost bowl games. Both incidents occurred under former coaches.

The difference is that ours were academic violations. Theirs were benefits violations.

The only reason this distinction matters in this instance is another poster claimed that Alabama routinely engages in academic dishonesty to flub their APR scores. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. We have been found guilty of academic dishonesty. They have not.

The Duke!;842322014 said:

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We were given five years probation for professors giving away grades.

Alabama was given 5 years probation for a textbook scandal and other impermissible benefits.

Both teams had to vacate wins. Both teams lost bowl games. Both incidents occurred under former coaches.

The difference is that ours were academic violations. Theirs were benefits violations.

The only reason this distinction matters in this instance is another poster claimed that Alabama routinely engages in academic dishonesty to flub their APR scores. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. We have been found guilty of academic dishonesty. They have not.

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No one in BCS college football lives in glass houses. No one is above it.

BTW the text book scandal was not the cause of their major sanctions. I get the point you are trying to make. They have not been caught for something we were. But neither one of us were born yesterday.

socaliganbear;842322015 said:

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No one in BCS college football lives in glass houses. No one is above it.

BTW the text book scandal was not the cause of their major sanctions. I get the point you are trying to make. They have not been caught for something we were. But neither one of us were born yesterday.

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Actually, he is twisting facts.

We weren't caught. We self reported.

It wasn't "professors" it was one professor.

The professor (who should have been fired) did not give away grades to football players. He regularly allowed certain students to take credit in his class and make it up later. Two of those students happened to be football players. The football team reported the situation. The compliance officer investigated and was intimidated by the academic side who essentially said how they graded was none of the AD's business. Cal committed a violation, but it had nothing to do with supporting football. It was the opposite. Saragoza would have been torn apart if he did that as a professor at Alabama and he got the football team sanctioned.

As I said, I'm not claiming our academics are great. I think they have been unacceptable. But Alabama is a joke and claiming they've done great in academics is ridiculous. If Duke wants to believe that if the NCAA doesn't say it, it never happened, that is fine for him. I'm sure he is convinced that Al Capone was never guilty of anything but tax evasion. The decades of rampant cheating by schools like Alabama and USC are well known and obvious. I'm not a court of law. I don't need to turn a blind eye to the obvious because they are good at covering their tracks. If you want to cheat on the test, fine. But don't cheat on the test and then say you are smarter than I am when you get a better grade.

OaktownBear;842322098 said:

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But Alabama is a joke and claiming they've done great in academics is ridiculous. If Duke wants to believe that if the NCAA doesn't say it, it never happened, that is fine for him. I'm sure he is convinced that Al Capone was never guilty of anything but tax evasion. The decades of rampant cheating by schools like Alabama and USC are well known and obvious. I'm not a court of law. I don't need to turn a blind eye to the obvious because they are good at covering their tracks. If you want to cheat on the test, fine. But don't cheat on the test and then say you are smarter than I am when you get a better grade.

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So we can say people are guilty without any evidence. Oaktown's gut is the only proof we need.

Sounds fair.

OaktownBear;842322098 said:

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Actually, he is twisting facts.

We weren't caught. We self reported.

It wasn't "professors" it was one professor.

The professor (who should have been fired) did not give away grades to football players. He regularly allowed certain students to take credit in his class and make it up later. Two of those students happened to be football players. The football team reported the situation. The compliance officer investigated and was intimidated by the academic side who essentially said how they graded was none of the AD's business. Cal committed a violation, but it had nothing to do with supporting football. It was the opposite. Saragoza would have been torn apart if he did that as a professor at Alabama and he got the football team sanctioned.

As I said, I'm not claiming our academics are great. I think they have been unacceptable. But Alabama is a joke and claiming they've done great in academics is ridiculous. If Duke wants to believe that if the NCAA doesn't say it, it never happened, that is fine for him. I'm sure he is convinced that Al Capone was never guilty of anything but tax evasion. The decades of rampant cheating by schools like Alabama and USC are well known and obvious. I'm not a court of law. I don't need to turn a blind eye to the obvious because they are good at covering their tracks. If you want to cheat on the test, fine. But don't cheat on the test and then say you are smarter than I am when you get a better grade.

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Yep.