I touched on this in another thread but it is well worth keeping a eye open. Last evening on KVOA 4 Tucson they interviewed various academic people and the AD of Arizona about the perception of a 7 million buyout of Sumlin during the challenges 2020 and Covid have presented.
Naturally the AD used the old U 4 sports are self funding and not a nickle would come from the education budget. Keep in mind when they fired 21 full time athletic department workers it was because the programs faced a 65 million dollar loss in projected revenue. They also would not be posting new hiring during such challenging times.
On the academic side was the question of optics paying 7 million for a buyout over poor job production and the prospects of even more money in a new head coaching hire. The question raised was will student fees increase to help offset all these new cost...... no answer was given, crickets.
I suspect U 4 may need to pull in the reigns some on a new hire, if they give out a normal 5 year 10-15 million deal and a big buyout there is going to be a real backlash.
Athletics and academics are not in harmony at U 4 and that will be very interesting to watch.
Naturally the AD used the old U 4 sports are self funding and not a nickle would come from the education budget. Keep in mind when they fired 21 full time athletic department workers it was because the programs faced a 65 million dollar loss in projected revenue. They also would not be posting new hiring during such challenging times.
On the academic side was the question of optics paying 7 million for a buyout over poor job production and the prospects of even more money in a new head coaching hire. The question raised was will student fees increase to help offset all these new cost...... no answer was given, crickets.
I suspect U 4 may need to pull in the reigns some on a new hire, if they give out a normal 5 year 10-15 million deal and a big buyout there is going to be a real backlash.
Athletics and academics are not in harmony at U 4 and that will be very interesting to watch.
