Texas A&M Has Spent An Unbelievable Amount Of Money Paying Fired Coaches
Texas A&M Spending Insane Amounts Of Money
The Texas A&M Aggies are in a league of their own. Literally.
A brand-new chart hit social media this week demonstrating the impact that firing Jimbo Fisher had on the A&M athletic department. Spoiler alert: it was massive.
AL.com acquired data from the public SEC schools reported to the NCAA for Fiscal Year 2024 regarding pay allocated for severance spending from July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024. AL.com created a chart of the data they acquired, with one obvious outlier at the front.
It's Texas A&M.
A&M spent roughly $27.5 million on severance pay in just one year, from 2023-2024. That's the value of Fisher's unbelievably onerous buyout. A buyout A&M necessary to pay.
Jimbo Fisher's massive buyout led to an incredible amount of money going out the door at Texas A&M for severance pay. (Credit: Getty Images)
Texas A&M Far Outpacing Other Schools In Severance Pay, Despite Declining Contributions
The Aggies aren't done paying Fisher either; per an ESPN report, Fisher's contract stipulated that he'd be paid through the year 2031. To the tune of $7.2 million each year, for a total cost of $76 million. A&M is spending an insane amount of money for most of the next decade, to a coach that isn't working for them.
Must be nice to be Jimbo Fisher.
The payments come as A&M's revenue dropped significantly from Fiscal Year 2023 to FY2024, and donations dropped substantially too, per Sportico. For now, the Aggies have been able to make it work, but with revenue sharing incoming and years of paying Fisher to come, it could become a much tighter squeeze moving forward.
Particularly because Mike Elko's A&M career hasn't exactly gotten off to the best start either. The Aggies, after some early season momentum, finished the season just 8-5, on a three-game losing streak. If Elko doesn't turn the program around quickly, how much more severance pay can their athletic department and their boosters accept?
Auburn once again came in second in the SEC, though their severance pay actually declined substantially after the 2023 fiscal year. The Tigers that year were still paying Gus Malzahn's buyout, then fired Bryan Harsin. For their financial sake, hopefully Hugh Freeze can help right the ship.
Firing coaches and paying massive buyouts has become almost a tradition for some big programs. But with the economic realities of college football rapidly changing, we might not see schools giving out Jimbo Fisher-type deals anymore. But the Aggies did, and they're still paying for it. Boy oh boy are they paying for it.