‘Tip of the iceberg’: Pay for women’s college basketball coaches is skyrocketing. How high can it go?
- USA TODAY Sports is analyzing women’s basketball coaches’ pay with a searchable database, comparable to the men’s.
- Ten seasons ago, the highest-paid coach was Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, at just under $2 million. This season, UConn’s Geno Auriemma is making $2.9 million and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley and LSU’s Kim Mulkey more than $2.6 million each.
- At least 11 coaches are making $1M or more in total annual compensation.
When Brenda Frese got her first coaching job at Kent State in 1993, the $500-per-month paycheck was so paltry, Frese got a side gig working at Little Caesars Pizza.
Two years later, when she was hired as an assistant at Iowa State and got bumped up to $50,000 per year, “I thought I was rich,” she said.