A lot of us, myself included, were curious about what Earl's contract looked like. Since W&M is a public school, I filed an FOIA request to obtain the contract. Thanks to Matt Brown of Extra Points for helping me, you have to phrase the requests in pretty specific ways, or schools may try to ignore them.

On a basic level, it's a 5 year contract that pays $450k a year + performance bonuses + potential merit salary increases. The payouts are divided up in a bit of a funky matter, that said.

I attached the whole contract document to this thread, but here's the most relevant salary information:

"A. Annual Salary:
The University will pay Coach a base annual salary of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand dollars ($250,000), paid semimonthly and subject to withholdings as required by law.

B. Annual Increase:
Merit salary increases will be determined based on the University’s annual performance evaluations.

C. Additional Compensation and Benefits:
Coach will be compensated for retention and certain media and fundraising activities as set forth below. All payments shall be treated as income to Coach, subject to withholdings as required by law.

1. Retention Incentive: During the remainder of the term of this Agreement, Coach shall receive an annual retention incentive of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), to be paid within the first thirty (30) days of the new fiscal year beginning with the fiscal year starting on July 1, 2024.

2. Media Rights: Coach agrees to appear or speak, as appropriate, on television, radio, and other forms of media to promote William & Mary’s Men’s Basketball program, in consultation with the Director of Athletics. Fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) will be paid to Coach each year in support of successful promotional efforts. Payments to Coach will be made by March 1 of each fiscal year.

3. Fundraising and Community Outreach: Coach shall promote and participate in
activities to support donor cultivation and fundraising for William & Mary Men’s
Basketball, in consultation with the Director of Athletics. Fifty thousand dollars
($50,000) will be paid to Coach each year in support of successful fundraising and
community outreach efforts. Payments to Coach will be made by June 1 of each fiscal
year.

4. Phone: cell phone stipend consistent with University’s phone policy

5. Moving Expenses: The University will pay Coach a lump sum of $20,000 to use at his discretion for moving expenses within sixty (60) days of the execution date."

So basically, he has a $250k base salary, a $100k annual bonus, and then two $50k bonuses for fundraising and media. The bonuses all appear to be guaranteed, but maybe there's some legal reason for not just listing his salary at $450k, or maybe it keeps his buyout lower.

There's also a bunch of performance bonuses, the whole table is in the attached contract, but it's mostly $5-10k for stuff like winning 20 games, winning the CAA, making the tournament, etc. A national championship comes with a cool $100k bonus.

The buyout starts at $1 million and drops over time, which is pretty standard.

The contract automatically gets extended by a year each time Earl makes the tournament, for up to three years. There's no other automatic renewal clauses, I guess the school learned its lesson about extensions after Dane.

He also gets 6 tickets to every home game, which is kinda funny to me. I sorta would've assumed at a school like WM, where we're not gonna sell out Kaplan, the coach could get as many tickets as he wants.

(04-09-2024 12:28 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  A lot of us, myself included, were curious about what Earl's contract looked like. Since W&M is a public school, I filed an FOIA request to obtain the contract. Thanks to Matt Brown of Extra Points for helping me, you have to phrase the requests in pretty specific ways, or schools may try to ignore them.

On a basic level, it's a 5 year contract that pays $450k a year + performance bonuses + potential merit salary increases. The payouts are divided up in a bit of a funky matter, that said.

I attached the whole contract document to this thread, but here's the most relevant salary information:

"A. Annual Salary:
The University will pay Coach a base annual salary of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand dollars ($250,000), paid semimonthly and subject to withholdings as required by law.

B. Annual Increase:
Merit salary increases will be determined based on the University’s annual performance evaluations.

C. Additional Compensation and Benefits:
Coach will be compensated for retention and certain media and fundraising activities as set forth below. All payments shall be treated as income to Coach, subject to withholdings as required by law.

1. Retention Incentive: During the remainder of the term of this Agreement, Coach shall receive an annual retention incentive of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), to be paid within the first thirty (30) days of the new fiscal year beginning with the fiscal year starting on July 1, 2024.

2. Media Rights: Coach agrees to appear or speak, as appropriate, on television, radio, and other forms of media to promote William & Mary’s Men’s Basketball program, in consultation with the Director of Athletics. Fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) will be paid to Coach each year in support of successful promotional efforts. Payments to Coach will be made by March 1 of each fiscal year.

3. Fundraising and Community Outreach: Coach shall promote and participate in
activities to support donor cultivation and fundraising for William & Mary Men’s
Basketball, in consultation with the Director of Athletics. Fifty thousand dollars
($50,000) will be paid to Coach each year in support of successful fundraising and
community outreach efforts. Payments to Coach will be made by June 1 of each fiscal
year.

4. Phone: cell phone stipend consistent with University’s phone policy

5. Moving Expenses: The University will pay Coach a lump sum of $20,000 to use at his discretion for moving expenses within sixty (60) days of the execution date."

So basically, he has a $250k base salary, a $100k annual bonus, and then two $50k bonuses for fundraising and media. The bonuses all appear to be guaranteed, but maybe there's some legal reason for not just listing his salary at $450k, or maybe it keeps his buyout lower.

There's also a bunch of performance bonuses, the whole table is in the attached contract, but it's mostly $5-10k for stuff like winning 20 games, winning the CAA, making the tournament, etc. A national championship comes with a cool $100k bonus.

The buyout starts at $1 million and drops over time, which is pretty standard.

The contract automatically gets extended by a year each time Earl makes the tournament, for up to three years. There's no other automatic renewal clauses, I guess the school learned its lesson about extensions after Dane.

He also gets 6 tickets to every home game, which is kinda funny to me. I sorta would've assumed at a school like WM, where we're not gonna sell out Kaplan, the coach could get as many tickets as he wants.

Thanks for doing this. One other interesting note I see is that there is a pool of $325k for the 3 assistant coaches. Does anyone know how that compares to recent history?

Wow! Nice work getting this!

This is so much more reasonable than Dane's. Those bonuses would seem be there to reduce buyout and makes a lot of sense. Don't have to worry about guaranteeing 325k if we need to part ways (or 1.5M over 5 years and additional 325 to fire the new coach ). Instead you have 200k already budgeted towards the next coach. This was artfully constructed.

From what i can gather, it certainly feels like we are more serious about fielding a legit basketball staff.

I have no way to back this up, but one thing that might happen is that Early gets another decent bump next year once Fischer is off the books.

Look like Mann is serious about Basketball

(04-09-2024 04:16 PM)Biggjohn43 Wrote:  Look like Mann is serious about Basketball

He just did the same thing with London and his staff last summer.

If he just uses money wisely and doesn't waste it like Huge did we may have something here.

Also of note: Mitigation clause along with offset. So no sitting on the couch for Earl if he gets canned.

$240k in buy games per year, which if I recall compared similarly with the last deal.
Should be 2-3 slaughterings each season.

What a breath of fresh air


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I love that Mann docusigned it 1 minute and 22 seconds after Earl did. He was ready to go.