It's the most obvious spin. Either they just don't want to hire him or they were trying to get boosters to pony up. The actual cost is much less, because any coach we hire would not be making as much as Beamer and you wouldn't pay his salary. It's nonsensical from a finance perspective to not take into account the savings from firing Beamer (35% of his contract) and to count hiring a new staff to replace his as an additional cost when in that scenario you're not paying the salaries of Beamer's staff next year. Basically, whether it's Beamer's staff or another staff next year, we will be paying a football coaching staff a significant amount of money next season. The $50 mil number double counts that amount.
Say you hire a guy at $6 mil a year average through 2030 (you could easily get someone for cheaper, look at the bottom paid coaches in the SEC). You're saving 35% of Beamer's salary of ~$8.5 mil by firing him, which is ~$3 mil a year. That's half of the new coach's salary paid for just in savings from Beamer. Your cost above what we're already gonna pay currently is then just ~$3 mil a year through 2030, which amounts to $12 mil total across 4 years. Add in the cost of buying out Beamer's staff and assume we pay the new staff the same and it comes to maybe $7 mil additional cost next year (this isn't even taking into account that some or most of the staff may be retained or hired elsewhere without having to buy them out - remember Mike Bobo?). So total $10 mil over the next year and $3 mil a year 2028-2030. Grand total $19 mil. Our total athletic department revenue in that same time period (80% or so from football) will be probably between $700-$800mil. So you're spending about 2.5% of your total revenue in that timeframe extra if you fire Beamer. That is a lot of money, but it is not $50 mil, and it is not unaffordable.
tl;dr: The AD would pay less than $20 mil extra over the next 4 years if they pulled the trigger on Beamer. Not saying he should be fired, but don't buy the BS $50 mil number. The finance people advising the athletic department are not thinking like that and neither should you.
Say you hire a guy at $6 mil a year average through 2030 (you could easily get someone for cheaper, look at the bottom paid coaches in the SEC). You're saving 35% of Beamer's salary of ~$8.5 mil by firing him, which is ~$3 mil a year. That's half of the new coach's salary paid for just in savings from Beamer. Your cost above what we're already gonna pay currently is then just ~$3 mil a year through 2030, which amounts to $12 mil total across 4 years. Add in the cost of buying out Beamer's staff and assume we pay the new staff the same and it comes to maybe $7 mil additional cost next year (this isn't even taking into account that some or most of the staff may be retained or hired elsewhere without having to buy them out - remember Mike Bobo?). So total $10 mil over the next year and $3 mil a year 2028-2030. Grand total $19 mil. Our total athletic department revenue in that same time period (80% or so from football) will be probably between $700-$800mil. So you're spending about 2.5% of your total revenue in that timeframe extra if you fire Beamer. That is a lot of money, but it is not $50 mil, and it is not unaffordable.
tl;dr: The AD would pay less than $20 mil extra over the next 4 years if they pulled the trigger on Beamer. Not saying he should be fired, but don't buy the BS $50 mil number. The finance people advising the athletic department are not thinking like that and neither should you.
