Will Firing NB actually cost us money in the long run?
answer........not really.............Disclaimer:
I did a ton if digging and I am sure I could have some salaries slightly off because not everything was updated for this current year, or the salary wasn’t listed so I took a comparable salary and simply filled in the blanks. Considering the size of these checks I would consider it a rounding error if I am off a couple hundred grand. This was really only a problem on the analyst side of things and all things were kind of accessible for the big names of our program.
What’s the point of this post??
Various people have posted that we can’t fire NB if we have a horrendous season because we can’t afford it. I decided to get into the numbers to see if that is true and to my surprise not so much if we pull a coach up, we actually can! These numbers don’t work if we want an established real deal P5 coach to step in. We would be at the same burn rate we are now and have to pay the buy out. That just isn't practical. We need a head coach that we can pay between 1 mil and 600k and overall we need to be in that 5 to 6 million for the program year 1 and 2 for this in my opinion. What’s the point of this post??
In addition I am sure someone can figure out what kind of money we lose if we become a bottom of the barrel team and impact on attendance etc. that is a real cost and is left out here. We all know what Covid did to the budget I would assume being a 3 to 4 win team YoY would have a major impact.
Lets dig in to the numbers ( I can post all my math if you guys want)
I know it’s an eye chart, but I will do my best to explain.
This is a break down of our HC and supporting staff along with a quick and dirty sum of the buyout for HC NB. The Total represents what it costs to just keep him YoY (year of year)| Year | Salary | buyout | total for year | coaches | total |
2021 | $3,150,000 | $20,200,000 | $23,350,000 | $4,575,000 | $7,725,000 |
2022 | $3,500,000 | $16,700,000 | $20,200,000 | $5,124,000 | $8,624,000 |
2023 | $4,000,000 | $12,700,000 | $16,700,000 | $5,738,880 | $9,738,880 |
2024 | $4,100,000 | $8,600,000 | $12,700,000 | $6,427,546 | $10,527,546 |
2025 | $4,200,000 | $4,400,000 | $8,600,000 | $7,198,851 | $11,398,851 |
2026 | $4,400,000 | $0 | $4,400,000 | $8,062,713 | $12,462,713 |
| Total NB Cost | $23,350,000 | ||||
| total program | $60,476,990 | ||||
Explanation of the above:
Neal Brown total cost to the University through 2026 or fired this year $23,350,000
Neal Browns Coaches plus his salary through 2026 is $60,476,990
Our burn rate currently for 2021 for all the assistant coaches and staff is approximately $4,575,000 (I increase this 12% YoY through 2026 since we did do salary adjustments as part of NB’s new deal and their contracts are two-year contracts)
Furthermore:
I used the salaries from ULM and took a stab of what I thought RR makes today and gave it a multiplier of 3 and did the same his supporting staff assuming we Fire Brown and hire RR. Used RR on purpose to see whose head explodes just by mentioning his name. There are tons of coaches at the level near the same salary. Did it work whose head is now on fire???
Next Chart with salaries from a non P5 school with a RR type guy and salary. I include a 20% raise overall for the entire staff HC included YOY. the delta just means what is saved between the new coaches vs keeping the old. It essentially shows how much we are saving year over year to help explain where the savings are coming from. I dunno helped me visualize it. We would obviously have to pay NB for 2021 and his buyout but we would not be paying the new coaches that's why that is zeroed out.
Year | Salary | increase YOY | NB Burn | delta | YoY |
2021 | $0 | | $7,725,000 | $7,725,000 | $20,200,000 |
2022 | $5,500,000 | 0.2 | $8,624,000 | $3,124,000 | $5,500,000 |
2023 | $6,600,000 | 0.2 | $9,738,880 | $3,138,880 | $6,600,000 |
2024 | $7,920,000 | 0.2 | $10,527,546 | $2,607,546 | $7,920,000 |
2025 | $9,504,000 | 0.2 | $11,398,851 | $1,894,851 | $9,504,000 |
2026 | $11,404,800 | 0.2 | $12,462,713 | $1,057,913 | $11,404,800 |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | 2022 | $16,349,000 | $10,849,000 | $25,700,000 |
| | 2023 | $26,087,880 | $13,987,880 | $32,300,000 |
| | 2024 | $36,615,426 | $16,595,426 | $40,220,000 |
| | 2025 | $48,014,277 | $18,490,277 | $49,724,000 |
| | 2026 | $60,476,990 | $19,548,190 | $61,128,800 |
| | | | | |
| | savings | | | |
| | 2022 | -$9,351,000 | | |
| | 2023 | -$6,212,120 | | |
| | 2024 | -$3,604,574 | | |
| | 2025 | -$1,709,723 | | |
| | 2026 | -$651,810 | | |
| | | | | |
There is a ton going on here but the surprising thing I learned when inputting the numbers is we actually break close to even in 2026 just by not paying his staff and him and we assume a 20% increase in salary for the new coaching staff YoY.
Bottom line is we can afford to fire Brown if we smart with the pick and money. And at the end of 2026 didn’t cost us a dime overall.
If we lose out and close the season with a L to Kansas I say rip the bandaid.
