USA TODAY calculated a "cost per win" (coach salaries / wins), and Virginia has the dubious distinction of being ranked No. 1 among public schools.
The University of Virginia paid new football coach Bronco Mendenhall more this season than his predecessor, Mike London, was scheduled to make last season. It also paid Mendenhall's nine on-field assistants considerably more than it was paying London's.
For all of that, the Cavaliers ended up with a 2-10 record this season — two fewer wins than they had last season — and the greatest cost per win of any Football Bowl Subdivision public school, an average of more than $3.2 million.

Virginia Tech's cost per win was $748,111.
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"Michigan had the greatest cost per win among schools with at least 10 wins. With coach Jim Harbaugh getting $9 million this season, including two $2 million deferred payments rather than what will be his usual one, the Wolverines' 10 wins cost more than $1.35 million apiece. Even if Harbaugh's extra $2 million is eliminated from the equation, Michigan's average cost per win would be more than $1.15 million."
Nice to know they overpaying for what they are getting.
Fuck Michigan
At least loluva football is #1 at something.
In this case, if you're first, you are last.
Interesting how the reaction is brewing over at lesabre
LOLUVA #1
They've started a subthread comparing themselves to ODU and how LOLUVA = 2 is better than ODU = 9 because - math.
How in the holy hell do you keep sane reading their screwed up posting system? I don't want to navigate to a new page for each one word comment.
Yes, the site sucks. Pro-tip, if the comment title ends in **, then there is no text beyond the title. A lot of posters try to limit their comments to the title to make browsing easier.
I re-iterate, the site sucks. Thank you so much, Joe, for all your work making TKP awesome.
So, the site is a reflection of the institution upon it is based.
actually that site (and others) is operated by TSL. Run by Will Stewart, a Hokie.
There's a moral to be found here, but I can't find it...
Moral: Fuck em
I don't think Will runs the Sabre, they are both under the SportsWar umbrella.
If you use a mobile device the comments are not limited to the title. The mobile site is actually a lot better.
It's affiliated with UVA therefore it is terrible. That's just automatic
Preach!
All I can see in that gif
I probably didn't notice that kid for a solid minute
what kid?
Well, it is her talent, after all.
Appreciate it. I am working on some enhancements for comments on TKP that will hopefully simply embedding GIFs, YouTube, etc...
They certainly have gotten good at brevity and the 1 line response.**
Could you imagine trying to read some of the discussions the advanced numbers threads, the ACC officiating threads, the legal nuance conversations or the philosophy subthreads. It would be unbearable.
Edit - Or the discussion on who belongs in the CFP games. Could you imagine Chris, Alum07, hokie07ME, and others limited to 1 line ;-)
But they probably load quickly...
UVa Math.... Where 2=9
Also on TheSabre... where this happens:
I was really proud of that
I was most proud that Wake actually ended up winning, making us look like geniuses
But hey, they got bargain-basement prices on their losses.
#HoosRising
As the saying goes, "the cream(puff) rises to the top."
Something like that.
earned not given?
How does their athletic department not operate at a loss? I guess, since they're a state school, it gets covered by state funds somehow. Regardless, I'd imagine if this continues too much longer they should probably think about dropping down to FCS.
The most recent numbers I found (2014-2015) indicate UVA is operating at about $100k loss. Their revenue is, over the last few years, about $13M higher than VT's and they usually break even or have a small loss. The have a surprising amount of donors, many of whom are quite wealthy. Their donor base, despite the absolute trainwreck of a football team, is quite generous towards the athletics program overall.
Yep the lacrosse, crew, soccer and basketball fans and supporters really do support that "football" team.
Virginia doesn't allow general fund monies to be used to subsidize athletic programs.
They get a good chunk of money from student fees.
UVA's student bank: Undergrads pay $13.2 million in athletics fees
VT's fees are lower. See comparison here.
$ per win is interesting (and fun for us to laugh at!), but it does not have a direct impact on operating margin. Their staff cost was actually less than ours. From a staff pay perspective, they aren't doing anything crazy- they are only 5th out of the 8 ACC public schools.
The bigger concern for them has to be ticket revenue. Their average attendance the last 3 years were: 39.3k, 43.3k, and 39.9k. The average attendance this season put them at only 65% of the 61,500 capacity, which has to be disappointing given they had a new HC, which should theoretically bring some enthusiasm to the fan base. They are making up for this to a certain degree by playing 7 home games in most seasons (2016 was an exception and only had 6 home games, but they had 7 in 2014 and 2015 and will in 2017 as well). They also have good basketball attendance- which is a smaller venue but has a lot more games-- so they have a good revenue stream there. And as we saw in the numbers provided by the Hokie Club this year, they are well ahead of us in donations as well. So, all in all, they are doing ok in terms of operating margin. But I'd still be really concerned about the football attendance trend if I was their AD.
Did this include buyouts for fired coaches? Are they still paying timecop?
How would they have calculated it if UVA had done what they were supposed to do and go 0-12?
Divide by 0? NaN
If you have an iphone, ask Siri what zero divided by zero is. Her explanation fits UVA football perfectly.
via GIPHY
I think Alabama would be a lot higher if they included analysts and general staff. Don't they have something like 30 people working under the coaches?
And just imagine if they had included what the players get
Now that Wakeyleaks is final, VT's cost-per-win just got $25,000 more expensive.......
Oh crap, we lost.
nevermind.
That's $8,333.33 per point thank you very much...
NaN for points per dollar in regulation