College football salaries: How Georgia's Mark Richt makes millions

ATHENS, Ga. — Mark Richt's signature on his University of Georgia coaching contract is worth $3.3 million — and running back Todd Gurley's on various pieces of sports memorabilia is worth roughly $3,000, plus a four-game suspension.

Such disparities are a fact of life in the unbalanced marketplace of big-time college football. "You can't argue that point," Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity tells USA TODAY Sports. "That's reality."

So is this: Top-tier college football coaches are making twice as much as they did in 2006, when USA TODAY Sports ran its first coaches' salary survey. Then, coaches at the NCAA's 119 Football Bowl Subdivision schools were making an average of more than $950,000. Today, at those same 119 schools (of the 128 current), the average salary is about $1.95 million. Even when adjusted for inflation, salaries have nearly doubled.

"I think it's basically the cost of doing business," McGarity says.

Richt, whose 14 seasons at Georgia make him one of the nation's longest-tenured coaches at his current school, has a middle-of-the-pack salary for coaches in the Southeastern Conference, where schools generate staggering amounts of football revenue. Georgia's was $77.5 million in 2012-13 — fourth in the nation and second in the SEC, according to school's most recent financial reports to the NCAA.

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It's Richt's job to maximize that revenue. His contract specifies that he "take any and all reasonable actions ... to generate substantial net revenue for the Association and University," an unusual clause for coaching contracts.

"It's just stating the obvious," McGarity says.

Richt's contractual duties also include soliciting sponsors for marketing opportunities and helping to find donors for scholarship endowments.

Richt's base salary is $400,000. His contract with the UGa Athletic Association lists "other university compensation" as $1.5 million for media appearances, $1.2 million for footwear and apparel endorsements and almost $130,000 for camps and clinics. (The $3.3 million figure also includes about $114,000 from Richt's athletically related outside income report.)

USA TODAY Sports followed Richt for parts of three days before the Bulldogs' upset loss to Florida last month to monitor his varied media obligations. After all, almost half the money he gets is for his radio, TV and public relations appearances, though he figures that view of his contract is too literal.

"I think they got to name it something," he says. "I do know how important all that stuff is. It's part of the job, though, definitely. I think we all understand that.

Richt's contract is unusually specific about his media and other public relations duties, including no fewer than 12 appearances at Bulldog Club meetings throughout the Southeast and no fewer than two full days each year assisting the school's president in fundraising activities. Parameters for his radio and TV appearances are spelled out in detail in his nearly 40-page contract and in greater detail in a 191-page multimedia and marketing rights licensing agreement that the contract specifies be provided to him.

"It's in there just to make sure that there's no misunderstanding of the expectations," McGarity says.

The SEC's median salary of $3.2 million — about $100,000 less than Richt's deal — is for coaches at the 11 public schools that were SEC members in 2006, when the median for those schools was $1.45 million. The median is more meaningful here because the league's average would be skewed by Alabama's Nick Saban, who makes $7 million as the conference's, and the nation's, highest-paid coach. Saban makes roughly $2 million more than Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin, the league's second-highest paid by nearly $700,000 over LSU's Les Miles.

Richt waves off the notion that a coach with the fourth-highest winning percentage among active FBS coaches should be making a good deal more than his conference's median. "I am making more than I ever dreamed of," he says, "so I don't worry about it too much."

The market for coaches, McGarity says, is set by demand — and by results. "The more success you have," he says, "then obviously there's going to be a higher rate of compensation."

The loss to Florida renewed familiar criticism that Richt is a very good but not great coach, despite his enviable average of 9.7 wins per season plus two SEC championships and five SEC title games. Critics point out he has never reached a national title game, let alone won a national title, while five other SEC schools won national championships during the Bowl Championship Series era.

Travis Haney, who writes an ESPN Insider column on college football, criticized Richt this month for failing "to cross the line that separates a very good, very consistent program from an elite one." And a caller to Bulldog Hotline after the Florida loss simply said, "Coach, you're too nice of a guy."

But Richt led his Bulldogs to Saturday's crucial 34-7 win against Auburn. Gurley, a one-time Heisman Trophy contender who returned for that game and rushed for 138 yards, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee on a fourth-quarter run. He is lost for the season, but the season is not lost. Georgia (8-2, 6-2 in the conference) can win the SEC East if Missouri loses to Tennessee or Arkansas. The Bulldogs even have an outside chance of getting into the inaugural four-team College Football Playoff, though they'd need a win in the SEC title game and several other dominoes to fall.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Here's a behind-the-curtain peek at Richt's media obligations early in the week before the Florida game:

Monday: Richt appears on Bulldogs Hotline, a call-in radio show where he answers questions from fans from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. He walks into his team's meeting room where a crowd from Coca-Cola, a sponsor, sits and watches. Richt poses for photos and signs autographs as host Scott Howard opens the show until, at last, Richt settles into his seat and takes the first call. Then, at each commercial break, he hops up for more grip-and-grin shots and more autographs.

"He's been through a lot of Sharpies in his career," says Claude Felton, senior associate athletics director for sports communications.

Richt gives injury updates during a segment sponsored by a local health care system. And before Howard finishes a segue to the next break, Richt is out of his chair and back to signing and flashing his handsome-guy grin for each click of the camera.

Somehow Richt signs the last item just before the end of the last commercial break, and when the last call is done he hustles out of his chair and exits to applause. He learned long ago not to linger.

Tuesday: Richt faces a media gantlet that will last the better part of two hours. First up is the weekly news conference with print reporters. He carries a laminated cheat sheet with depth charts and stats for handy reference for his opening statement.

He takes 27 questions. Felton hustles Richt to his next stop, placing an index finger on a sensor that automatically unlocks a door to the Dogs' inner sanctum. "Sounds like a prison door opening," Richt deadpans.

They reach a spot near the weight room with two folding chairs where he tapes the Mark Richt Report with WSB Radio's Tony Schiavone. They tape Wednesday's, Thursday's and Friday's quickie segments, plus a spot for Saturday's pregame show.

"Where we going next?" Richt asks. They traipse off to another taping, this one for his TV show Inside Georgia Football with Mark Richt, where Chuck Dowdle asks affable questions.

Next it's off to another news conference, this one for TV stations, and he faces a bank of cameras and gets some of the same questions he has already heard at his first news conference. "There's not many new questions," he'll say later, "and I don't give many new answers."

Richt stops at a buffet table long enough for a quick plate of lasagna, and then it's off to TV spots for ESPN/SEC Network and for CBS Sports, which will broadcast that week's game. One questioner prefaces his query with an observation that the answer might call for a little coach-speak.

"That's all I've been doing all day," Richt says, smiling.

WORKING FOR A LIVING

So what about a system that makes multimillionaires of coaches and pays players mostly in tuition, room, board, books and fees?

"I don't know the best answer for that," Richt says. "We probably spend around $200,000 a year on each student-athlete in terms of education and travel and nutrition and services and all kind of different ways. There is a very strong benefit of being a college student-athlete.

"You learn a lot that prepares you for life, so there's a tremendous value even beyond money. But if somebody can figure out how to do it to make it make sense and not get totally crazy, I would love to see our student-athletes get more."

College athletes will get more — potentially a lot more — if U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken's ruling in the Ed O'Bannon class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA withstands appeal, or if either of two other suits pending before her go the plaintiffs' way.

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The O'Bannon case centers on the use of athletes' names and images — and coaches' compensation played a role in the outcome. Just before trial in June, the NCAA made a motion that references to the incomes of school employees be excluded. Wilken denied the motion and ultimately ruled that high spending on coaches salaries and athletics facilities suggest that some schools "would, in fact, be able to afford their student-athletes a limited share" of the revenue generated from use of their names and images.

Gurley broke NCAA amateurism rules when he accepted payments from autograph brokers. Players cannot sell their images and likenesses. Coaches can — and do. Richt's contract spells that out explicitly, as do many coaching contracts.

For all that, McGarity thinks it is only fair for people to remember how hard coaches work.

"There are demands as far as the responsibility for 125 young men," he says. "I mean, you're not only a coach, but you're a father figure. You're a mentor. Sometimes you have to be a psychologist. You've got to be there 24-7 for these young men. You need to know everything about them — who they're dating, their parents, what they're studying, their cellphone, because you're their first line of communication."

And then, after tending to 125 players and dozens of media outlets, there are X's and O's. As Richt left the field at halftime of the Auburn game, ESPN's Holly Rowe asked him about first-half gambles. His answer suggests a keen understanding of a coach's essential dilemma.

"Well, if you make it, it's good," he said. "If you don't, then you're stupid."

SPREADING THE LOVE

Katharyn Richt is well known around the state for doling out water on the sidelines of her husband's games. She met him when he was a graduate assistant under Bobby Bowden at Florida State. How much money did Richt make then?

"Oh, peanuts," she says, laughing. "Not very much."

Now everyone knows exactly how many millions he makes because his contracts are public record.

"Yeah, I don't like it," she says. "The reality is when you have more money, a lot more money flies out the door. We're very blessed."

Her husband's earnings since 2006, when USA TODAY Sports began tracking coaches' pay, exceed $25 million.

"I don't need all of that, that's for sure," she says. "But, you know, we seem to spread the love."

They do. The Richts have four children. Jon, 24, is an unpaid quality-control coach on his father's staff, and David, 19, is a student at Belmont University who has released an album of contemporary Christian songs. They "came along the usual way," as Georgia's media guide puts it, "but two came in a very special way."

The Richts adopted Zach, 18, and Anya, 17, from an orphanage in Ukraine in 1999, when Richt was offensive coordinator at Florida State. Anya, who was 21/2 then, had a facial deformity and Richt worried if they didn't adopt her maybe no one else would. He cites scriptural admonitions about taking care of those in need.

"My wife and I know we're blessed, and we try to bless other people," Richt says. "We try to be generous with what God's given us. We're thankful for what we have, and we try to be prudent with the stewardship of that money. We know that we're called on to help others."

Contributing: Jodi Upton