University of Maryland football coaches got more than $671,000 in contract bonuses for a mid-level bowl game that netted the school no money, according to budget records obtained by The Baltimore Sun.
More than a dozen coaches split $671,063 in bonuses for making and winning the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in 2022. A year later, Maryland paid another $682,012 to coaches for December’s Music City Bowl, which the Terps also won, according to financial records obtained using the Maryland Public Information Act and interviews with athletics department staff.
“It’s unfortunate what you have to pay,” said Karen Weaver, who has authored several books on college sports finances and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
If the $1.35 million in bonuses seem high for a team that went 8-10 in Big Ten Conference games over the past two seasons, Weaver said the expenditures are symptoms of the spiraling arms race for college athletics talent.
Maryland’s $671,063 in 2022 bowl bonuses was more than its entire recruiting budget for men’s basketball ($343,322) and women’s basketball ($198,715) combined.
The high cost of travel, lodging and other expenses meant the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which was played in front of 37,228 fans in Charlotte, North Carolina, in December 2022, was a net money loser for Maryland.
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The university spent $1.1 million — plus the bonuses to coaches — and made $1.6 million on the game for a net loss of $176,302, according to the budget figures, which appeared in an annual report to the NCAA dated Jan. 12.
Budget figures for the Music City Bowl, which was played last Dec. 30, aren’t yet available, according to the school.
Maryland beat North Carolina State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which is best known for its tradition of drenching the winning coach in mayonnaise. The Terps beat Auburn in the Music City Bowl. Combined with defeating Virginia Tech in the 2021 Pinstripe Bowl, Maryland has won postseason games in three straight years for the first time.
There is intrinsic value in appearing in bowl games, said athletics department spokesman Jason Yellin. He said the games excite the fan base, provide national exposure that helps with recruiting and give the team a head start on the next season by allowing postseason practices that wouldn’t otherwise be permitted under NCAA rules.
“We’ve won bowl games in three consecutive seasons for the first time ever,” Yellin said. ”So I think these are great strides and demonstrate the future is really strong.”
The Maryland athletics program receives no state government subsidy. However, students must contribute at Maryland and many other schools. Maryland undergraduates’ athletics fee is $399 a year, which means, Weaver said, that students are helping “subsidize” the athletics budget.
In the last fiscal year, the department collected $11.7 million in student fees, its third-largest revenue source behind the $57.1 million it received in Big Ten Conference distributions and $12.8 million in overall ticket sales.
Hefty bonuses are increasingly part of the college sports landscape. The national leader among public schools is former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who accumulated $3 million in bonuses during last season’s national championship run, according to USA Today, which reported Harbaugh’s total pay was over $8 million. He is now coach of the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers.
The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a watchdog group, said in a release after meeting in November that it was concerned about “exorbitant spending” on football coaches relative to expenditures for scholarships and other needs of student-athletes. There is also a growing push for players to be compensated directly for their participation as media rights deals soar. In 2022, the Big Ten agreed to a seven-year deal with Fox, CBS and NBC that is set to bring in more than $1 billion annually.
The bowls Maryland won are one rung below college football’s top postseason contests.
The top bowls are the “New Year’s Six,” which features well-known games such as the Rose, Orange and Sugar bowls and includes the two College Football Playoff national semifinals.
The Music City and Duke’s Mayo bowls feature teams from major conferences and provide exposure for participating schools at a time when most other college football teams’ seasons have ended. But they don’t figure in the national playoffs and attract comparatively less attention than the New Year’s Six.
Maryland coach Michael Locksley received the biggest chunk — $220,000 — of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl bonuses, which, according to the school, were split among 18 coaches and staff.
According to his contract, Locksley got $50,000 for the team playing in a bowl game. He would have received $250,000 for making it to the four-team College Football Playoff.
Locksley also collected $70,000 for winning the bowl game and $100,000 for winning seven regular-season games. Maryland finished 7-5 before winning its bowl game.
Locksley made $5.5 million in 2023 — $600,000 in salary, plus $4.9 million in supplemental annual income. That includes a raise he got in early 2023 after the team won eight games in 2022 for the first time since 2010 and won back-to-back bowl games.
Maryland joined the Big Ten in 2014 — two years after budget constraints forced it to eliminate seven sports teams — with the goal of stabilizing athletic department finances and elevating the football program.
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Maryland’s record in Big Ten Conference football games is 27-57. Its 8-10 mark in 2022 and 2023 is its best two-year record since joining the conference.