"With television revenue rolling in, Power 5 schools are engaged in a new kind of arms race, paying significantly more money than ever before to coaches in so-called non-revenue sports.
Driving the news: USA Today examined how much money each Power 5 public school paid its head coaches in 23 sports other than football and men's and women's basketball in 2013 and 2018.
Their findings: In that five-year span, total compensation for those coaches grew a whopping 43%, which is almost the same rate of increase that football coaches saw (51%).
Specific examples: The average compensation in softball increased by 62%, with 11 schools paying more than $400,000. The average compensation in baseball rose by 51% to $651,445 and the average compensation in wrestling grew by 55% to $266,000.
Why it matters: "[T]he fact that compensation for coaches in lower-profile, money-losing sports has been growing at a similar rate to football raises red flags for some athletics directors worried about budget crunches," per USA Today.
It also raises red flags for critics of the NCAA model, who look at skyrocketing salaries in non-revenue sports alongside student-athletes who haven't seen a dime and see a broken system in desperate need of repair.
The big picture: In 2005, D-I schools spent more on scholarships than on coaches and administrative pay. But since then, the latter two have pulled ahead.
2005: $736 million on scholarships, $721 million on coaches pay, and $686 million on administrative pay.
2018: $1.92 billion on coaches pay, $1.72 billion on administrative pay, and $1.7 billion on scholarships." Axios
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