The House of Blue

been nothing short of remarkable what he has been able to accomplish!!

Happy for Mitchell. He's done a great job. Some people are very upset with the raise though.

Took a little longer than I expected for the hate to begin.

Matt, I realize that.

1. The contract does average $1.1MM per year.
2. According to the story in the LHL, Mitchell's base salary = $525,000 (and will increase in each of the next three seasons). I didn't see anything in today's reports that Cal's raise will increase his base salary = $400,000. Doesn't Joker also receive $400,000 in base salary?

If you want to play the game of "UK is really only paying xx amount of the contract and the rest is due to media contracts," how do you justify UK paying Mitchell 31.25% more than Calipari and Phillips?

Sorry I quoted the wrong one.

It's not about UK deeming Mitchell more valuable than either Cal or Joker. It's about: Those negotiating the deal set a value on Mitchell's contract based on the marketplace. Once they got to that number, UK likely struck a deal with those under the "broadcasting and endorsements" umbrella (likely IMG, Nike and corporate partners like Central Bank, Paul Miller Ford, etc.—though I don't know any of this for certain) to pay a certain amount.

The "broadcasting and endorsements" folks got their number, and UKAA got its number. It wasn't that UK deemed Mitchell more valuable than Calipari and Phillips, and then the "broadcasting and endorsements" people said, "Well, I guess we'll pitch in too."

Query any reasonable person to see if they'd deem Matthew Mitchell, who inarguably brings a lot of value to UK women's basketball and the university as a whole, more valuable to the athletic department than John Calipari or Joker Phillips. Nobody (at least, no reasonable person) would say "yes" to that. Simply saying that because of a quirk in where coaches' money comes from is, at its most harmless, inciteful. Saying it and in turn believing it is unreasonable and ignorant.

Be interested to see if other areas of revenue generating options are available to UK with our recent sucess in this sport. Or I'd like to hope so, that Mitch has some idea that additional revenue will be on the way to help partially offset this increased expense.

You two can argue semantics all day long. My original point was, still is and always will be that no sport that loses millions of dollars per year should pay its coach $1.1MM per year. (And rolling on floor emoticon that anyone would consider me a disgruntled football fan.)

Don't see anything like that in this thread. And this announcement is now 24 hours old.

Are you baiting for what you want to happen or something?

I'm glad that we have retained Coach Mitchell for the long haul, but wowzers! I am a HUGE supporter of Mitch B, but that is a lot of money to pay to someone who is coaching a sport that will likely never turn a profit. I understand that the media/endorsements are paying a huge chunk of that, but still... WOW.