TJ Walker argues LSU wasted $54 million firing Brian Kelly without cause, and says public universities shouldn't pay coaches more than the President's $400,000 salary. Kelly earned $95 million over ten years despite a 34-14 record.
Questions this video answers
$54 million payable over the next six years.
Arrived in 2021 on a 10-year, $95 million deal.
34 wins and 14 losses.
$400,000 per year.
$13.28 million per year.
Chapters
LSU's $54 million goodbye to Brian Kelly LSU Louisiana State University has finally made it official. According to reporting in the Athletic and confirmed by Sports Illustrated and others, the university has formally fired football coach Brian Kelly without cause, which means he is owed the full remaining buyout and $54 million over the next six years. A letter from new LSU president Wade Russo says the school will pay, quote, liquidated damages as required under the agreement, while requiring Kelly to make, quote, good faith, reasonable and sustained efforts to obtain qualified employment so LSU can reduce the hit if he lands another job. Kelly arrived from Notre Dame in 2021 on a 10 year, $95 million deal, and he won 34 games and lost 14 games in Baton Rouge. And remember, he was already among the top 10 highest paid coaches in college football. In a market where multiple public university coaches now make more than $10 million a year, it's all financed an ecosystem soaked in taxpayer money and tax breaks. What's the real message here? When conservatives scream loudly about waste, fraud and abuse in government, and when's Doge going to do something? Here's the real waste, fraud and abuse. Taxpayers are paying a state government employee $54 million in the next six years to hit on his butt. I'm talking about Brian Kelly, that recently fired coach from lsu. It's an obscenity the way any football coach gets paid more than the President of the United States when these people get your tax dollars. Let's dig a little deeper here. I have found I. I can't speak to every country in the world, but I've found that certainly in the United States, the second sports is involved with something, people who are normally sane, rational people become crazy. They lose the capacity to even count one plus one. It's as if they put a bullet to their brain. And in so many cases, you can go to someone and say, hey, give me all your money, but it's for sports people. Oh, sure, we need to close schools to give you more money. Fine. We need to shut down public roads to give you more money. Fine. This is true whether it's building a stadium for a billionaire. And it's true when giving taxpayer dollars to coaches. So here's the real problem I have. If it's a public university, the money is coming directly and indirectly from taxpayers, state taxpayers, federal government. Every state university gets massive, massive, massive funding from the federal government in many ways. Sometimes direct grants, sometimes all of the tuition is coming from students who get federal government loans and subsidies. Some. So these coaches are essentially government employees. Is their Job important. Okay, if you love football, yeah, it's important. Is it more important than being President of the United States and deciding when to go to war and how to run our country? I would argue no. Well, the President of the United States has a salary of $400,000 a year. Most Americans would kill to have a salary like that. So the proposal I've been putting out for years, and I have not convinced a lot of people, I'll be transparent with you, is if you accept public money and if you're a public employee, let's say you don't get paid more than the President of the United States. Let me ask you this. What is the worst thing that would happen if all of a sudden, overnight, nobody in higher education made more than $400,000 a year? All of those football coaches couldn't suddenly get jobs in the NFL. They would have to somehow get by on $400,000 a year, provided they currently make more than that. If they make less than that, wouldn't have any impact on them. What would be the negative impact for society? Absolutely nothing. Okay, let's say the top 10 football coaches in college go to the pros, and those schools get other good coaches. Okay. Maybe your team doesn't win a couple of games next year, or what's the negative impact? Why should a taxpayer, especially one who doesn't care about football, have to subsidize your hobby? Watching football is a hobby. I realize it's important for schools and important for branding and a lot of other things. People are very emotional about it. But I'm sorry. You can call me a conservative. I think it's wasteful government spending because there is no demonstrable need to ever pay any state government employee who coaches a game, a sport that is technically unrelated to any academic pursuit, more money than the President of the United States. I would like to conserve these collectively hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year to put it back into your pocket as a state taxpayer or a federal taxpayer. Let's look at some of the numbers here. And it's just absolutely obscene to anybody who isn't just a drooling, fanatical sports fan who would rather see children in their neighborhood starve than to lose the big game against the big rival, which seems to be so important to so many people. So, Kirby Smart, the Georgia football coach, makes $13.28 million a year. Ryan Day, the Ohio State coach, $12.58 million a year. Dabo Sweeney, 11 million a year. Lincoln Riley, USC coach, 11 million a year. Dan Lanning in Oregon. 10 million a year. Kalyn DeBoer, Alabama. Boy, do they take football seriously in Alabama having lived there. $10 million a year. Bill Belichick, $10 million a year to coach the University of North Carolina. He needs the money. I mean if you're 150-year-old man dating a 24 year old, I guess you need a lot of money because how else are you going to get the 24 year olds? Okay, so look f folks, this is obscenity and I get sick and tired of people telling me yeah, let's cut government waste, yeah, let's cut out the funding from USAID. God forbid we spend $2 a day keeping someone in another part of the world alive or giving them a couple of crumbs of bread or giving them a mosquito nut. It's okay to let 600,000 people die, which is what's happened because of, of Elon Musk Doge to get rid of usa. But oh my God, asking my college football player coach to get by on less than $10 million a year. That's the end of the world. I mean that's the mentality a lot of people have. Now it's not just public universities. There's, there's a lot of so called private universities out there who also pay their coaches obscene amounts of money. Guess what? These, these private universities, this is not Intel's team, this is not Microsoft's team, this is not Google's football team. These are from Nonprofit organizations, supposedly 501c3 tax exempt status. So they don't pay taxes because they're supposed to be there for the public good. What is the public good at taking vast, vast amounts of money from a society where the average person has essentially zero or close to zero net worth and giving it to one guy and it's a guy, let's not kid ourselves. Tens of millions of dollars over the course of a 10 year period. What is the, what is the public good rationale for that? There is none. And you can say, well tj these are private universities, they should be able to do what they want. Well guess how they get their students, they get their students from public funding because so many students at private universities get direct subsidies from the federal government, state government. They get their loans backed by the federal government. These so called private universities get millions, tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars of grants from the federal government. So they are awash in taxpayer dollars. So I think it's an obscenity that the United States Congress doesn't simply pass a law that says no public employee and nobody who works for a nonprofit organization shall make more than $400,000 or whatever the President of the United States makes. I defy you to really make a compelling case as to how society would be harmed. And I've had this argument with people before. They're like, well, T.J. you know, this is the market. It's not the market. It's propped up by government spending. And even, even professional sports isn't really free market enterprise. There's nothing more socialistic than the way the NFL is run. If you really look at the inner workings of the NFL and how they share their revenues and the way they get governments to pay for their places of business, their stadiums. But everyone's teaching the multiplier effect, and it's all complete nonsense. Every economist who's ever looked at the investment spent on stadiums will tell you you could get a bigger return on your investment and things like building good schools and parks and roads in a community rather than on a building that's used sometimes seven times a year for the benefit of billionaire owners and employees who make tens of millions of dollars a year. So, lsu, good luck with your new coach. You're going to to need it, although the coach doesn't. You know What? You make $10 million a year, you get fired. You got nice cushion. Too bad everyone doesn't have that kind of a cushion.
