Details of Mark Stoops' contract at Kentucky
Mark Stoops is 32-17 over his last four years at Kentucky, with an opportunity to collect his second 10-win season in the Citrus Bowl on New Year's Day. That success, at a program not accustomed to sustained winning, has attracted admirers in the media and in other athletics departments.
But the feeling all along was Stoops' best-in-class contract would make it tough to pry him out of Lexington, and this month Kentucky has given Stoops a new deal that will push his roots even further down into the bluegrass.
Stoops signed a new contract that will keep him at Kentucky through the 2027 season, with a salary rising up to $8 million. Via the Louisville Courier-Journal, he'll make $6.75 million in 2022, up from the $5.5 million he would've made under terms of his previous contract.
2021 salary: $5.25 million
2022: $6.75 million
2023: $7 million
2024: $7.25 million
2025: $7.5 million
2026: $7.75 million
2027: $8 million
Stoops' previous deal provided a $250,000 bonus for reaching seven wins in a season as well as an additional quarter-million bucks for every W beyond No. 7. The new deal ups that threshold a bit: Stoops will receive $250,000 for each at No. 9 and beyond -- but he'll still get an automatic 1-year extension each time Kentucky wins seven games in a season and an automatic 2-year extension for each 10-win season. Those additional seasons will also trigger a $250,000 raise for each new season.
So, if Kentucky goes 7-6 in 2022, Stoops will be locked in for 2028 at $8.25 million.
Additional bonuses range from $50,000 for a team GPA of 2.75 or higher to $500,000 for winning a national championship.
The buyout structure remains extremely coach-friendly as well. Stoops would owe $1.75 million if leaving after next season, while Kentucky would owe him 75 percent of his remaining salary. Moving on after the 2022 season would cost Kentucky $28.125 million.
Kentucky also deepened its assistant salary pool, upping its commitment to $6.5 million per year (from the current level of $5.45 million) and agreed to "evaluate the salaries for the football program’s support staff in accordance with market conditions and retentions strategies, and work in good faith with (Stoops) to increase those salaries accordingly.”
“It was the most important,” Stoops said of the staff pay clause. “We all know I'm paid too much. … Everybody talks about specifically recruiting budget. It's not recruiting budget. There's a lot to it. There's guys over here with me, (director of recruiting) Chase Heuke over here … I can't even tell you the amount of hours that he works and what he does and what he puts into it. So getting some support and continuing to build our organization, that's all.”
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
