What You Need to Know about KU's Big Money Deal with Leipold
Lance Leipold gets $35M and the stakes have never been higher for KU football
EVERYTHING IN THIS NEWSLETTER IS BASED UPON WHAT I AM HEARING FROM PEOPLE I TRUST. PLEASE DO NOT MISTAKE THIS FOR FACT OR FOR ACTUAL JOURNALISM, WHICH HAS VERIFICATION STANDARDS THAT I HAVE NOT ADHERED TO. I DO NOT GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT.
Kansas just announced its contract details for Lance Leipold, and THE SCHOOL IS SPENDING MONEY. Over seven years, Leipold gets $5M annually for roughly $35M total.
What Stands Out:
KU is paying like a big-time college football program. Only three coaches in the Big 12 have higher salaries1, and two are leaving for the SEC. Leipold is one of the top 30 highest-paid coaches in college football, making more than Dan Lanning at Oregon and roughly the same as Josh Heupel at Tennessee (surely Heupel will get a raise).
KState’s Chris Klieman is set to make $4M next season. Just leaving this here.2
The assistant pool is where KU spends more than we've seen in the past. The assistant coach salary pool increases from ~$3M to $5M. Leipold also gets his staff (excluding Leipold and assistants) an additional $2.5M. This is a significant increase, and it appeared to be among the key hold outs for Leipold in waiting to sign this new deal.
When Klieman was hired in 2019, KState’s assistant pool was reportedly $3.55M.
The incentives laid out feature Big Money as well. If KU makes the Big 12 title game, it'll be a top 25 team -- and those two combine for an extra $200K to Leipold.
Lance is holding KU accountable for stadium renovations. He can terminate the contract for $0 if KU hasn't meaningfully3 started renovating Anderson Family Football Complex or the stadium. If you haven't believed the stadium is getting renovated... now is the time. This is it. It's happening.
Now is the time to start watching (or listening) for logistics about stadium renovations. Let me know if you hear anything, and I'll look into it.
Not to be negative, but the buyout numbers are slightly lower than expected. Let's say Matt Rhule or Luke Fickell leave Nebraska or Wisconsin for the NFL in two seasons. It's hard to see $5M or $6M keeping those schools away.
If Travis Goff leaves KU, Leipold can terminate the agreement at a 50% reduced rate. Goff is Leipold's guy, and vice versa.
2025 seems to be the renegotiation year. It’s mentioned six different times in the contract. It reads to me like both parties agree to meet "in good faith" to re-examine the terms of the deal.
How I See It:
Leipold’s agent wins this round, but it was still the best option for KU. The stakes were too high. This contract is a risk but a calculated one. The greater risk would be NOT investing in football right now. Leipold knew that (or at least his agent did) and held firm.
Put another way: KU would’ve had to spend good money to replace Leipold and his staff while starting this process over again. In the transfer portal era, that’s a recipe for disaster. After all the money KU has spent on coaches that didn’t work out over the last 12 years, spending to keep a known commodity was necessary, even if the negotiations were tedious.
You know when you read about the U.S. almost using nuclear weapons five years after the fact? That's the equivalent of us finding out that Lance was ready to leave. A more politically correct comparison would be KU Hoops getting Brandon Rush back for the 2007-08 season because he allegedly got hurt in an illegal workout. What would've happened had Rush not returned?! KU probably doesn't go to the Final Four. Bill Self's seat gets hotter than The Wheel's mini corndogs fresh out of that ol’ fryer. The stakes were that high in 2008, and they are for KU football now.
Football is returning most of its talent next season. It already has a 5-star OL transfer. Now is the time, and it's worth every dollar KU (and its fans) can spend.
Some Fun Stuff:
There's an interesting line in this contract about conference realignment. KU and Leipold will meet "in good faith" following the 2025 season to ensure Leipold and his staff's salaries are in the top half of the Big 12. If a school announces its intention to leave the conference, it's left out of the calculations. So if Oklahoma St. says it will leave the Big 12, Gundy's salary gets removed from the equation.
Leipold also gets two cars, a country club membership with greens fees paid for, and $125K annually to use a private jet "for his personal use and at his discretion." Let me know if you see Lance and his family in Tahiti.
Comment below and let me know what caught YOUR eye. Let’s talk about it
TCU is private and doesn’t have to disclose Sonny Dykes’ salary. Guessing he’ll get a big raise beyond $5M per year this offseason.
If anyone has figured out how to stop messing with KState fans on Twitter, please let me know.
The contract states "meaningful and substantial" means "physical construction of the structure and/or grounds shall have commenced."
Glad the school did the right thing.
What are the "Hearings" on big donations? I know around this time last year you were discussing the admin lining up the prominent donors with the last names most KU fans would recognize. What about others? How awesome would it be if Paul Rudd publicly donated some of that Marvel money, or Embiid and some other more successful NBA players pooled like a $10-15mil donation?