So, I decided to do some internet snooping and I came across the old 990 tax forms for the 5 major football conferences and the Big East. Before you ask, 990′s are the tax forms filled out by non-profit organizations and are all available for public consumption. In any case, I started tracking the salaries of the Conference Commissioners to facilitate a good ol fashioned d**k measuring contest. But never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined John Swofford was banking this much money.
Salaries via Guide Star
Now, I’ve been apart of the “Fire John Swofford” pitchfork and torch crowd for a little while so naturally this made my head spin. For the life of me, I cannot understand what he’s done to justify his salary.
If his claim to fame is still the 2003 raid of the Big East to jack UMiami, VTech and Boston College, then the only logical conclusion I can draw is that he must have Scott Boras as an agent. Because there’s no other way one can be so heavily overpaid for the flash in the pan work they did yester-year.
Let’s list Swoff-Daddy’s accomplishments since the ACC expansion:
1. Short-sighted alignment of the divisions which gutted out some of the old rivalries like BC-UM, BC-VT and FSU-GTech. Not to mention, ignoring the simplicity of North-South divisions.
2. Poorly negotiated the new TV deal in which the ACC signed over all their media rights to ESPN. That’s right…all of their rights.
3. Failure to schedule conference games to promote the ACC’s best teams, current matchups, or rivalries. As well as petty vindictive scheduling for schools who refuse to go along with their ill-advised moves.
4. Failure to put pressure on Duke and Wake to improve their football teams. I’m sure they only care about basketball but if that’s the case, they should take a smaller cut of the football money.
5. Failure to leave the ACC free to create their own TV network. With all the large markets in ACC territory, it’s hard to understand Swoffy-boy’s reasoning.
Maybe, just maybe Swofford has a trick up his sleeve. But from where I stand, I can’t see how he can justify making 1.6 million.
SIDE NOTE:
How the hell does Dan Beebe make less than Tranghese?
I couldn’t agree with you more..