My new column for The Hill is about the conflicts of interest created by incentive clauses — above and beyond their stratospheric salaries — in the contracts of college football coaches, which may require them to choose between protecting player safety and their own income.
Here is the gist:
Are Coaching Conflicts of Interest Ruining College Football?
The problem with coaching incentives – providing additional payments for achieving certain records or winning particular games – is that they create potentially severe conflicts of interest between a coach’s income and his players’ safety. Consider one of the most lucrative provisions in Kelly’s new contract at LSU.
In addition to his annual base pay of over $9 million, Kelly will receive $500,000 every year his team becomes “bowl eligible” by winning at least six games. Imagine a situation in which LSU’s record is 5-6 going into the final game of the regular season. With $500,000 at stake, could Kelly make an objective decision about bringing a previously injured star player back into the lineup?
A coach would certainly never admit endangering a player in order to win a game – no matter how much it added to his own bottom line – but nobody is immune to motivated reasoning. That is what makes conflicts of interest so invidious. They operate at the level of subliminal temptation, rather than deliberate choice.
I do not begrudge successful coaches their extravagant salaries, but their judgement should not be clouded by the prospect of extra pay when player safety is hanging in the balance. Only a few points behind in the waning minutes of a money game, with the team’s best receiver still recovering from an aching but conceivably serviceable hamstring, should the coach have half a million bucks riding on whether to keep him safely on the bench?
In the world of college football contracts, the devil is in the incentives.
You can read the entire column here.
Don't forget the possible effect of cognitive biases, especially ethical blindness, in a situation like this.
Thanks, Scott. Yes, ethical blindness, and also motivated reasoning.
This may prove too much. It is not only about the extra incentives. The coach's job-and thus his base salary and continued employment–hinges on the team's success. This gives him an incentive to engage in the actions you describe in every game and every situation, because he must win as many games as possible to keep his job. And it extends not only to overlooking injuries, but also to overlooking players' off-field misconduct, academic problems, etc. Do specific salary benefits create that much of an additional perverse incentive?
Bob Huggins (then at Cincy, now at West Virginia) was once asked why he was so nuts during games. His response invoked the problem of 18 year-olds running around with his paycheck hanging out of their mouths.
What you identify is endemic to coaching at all levels. The difference is that pros make more money and thus, in theory, have more control over how they are used.
Howard: The incentive to win is essential to the game itself, and therefore cannot be eliminated. Even so, it does not need to be magnified by adding game-specific incentives. We cannot completely protect players from coaches' self-interest, but that does not mean we should do nothing.
"I do not begrudge successful coaches their extravagant salaries"
I do. Funny, am I the Socialist here?
In my view, college athletics for profit is inherently a conflict of interest, and should be either abolished entirely, or designed in such a way to be solely an expense to the University, not a profit center.
If Universities full of "woke" socialists seek to pay their professors lush salaries with the profits made from exploiting athletes, then the enterprise is itself corrupt, and by that, I mean the professors, including in the law school, who feed off those profits.
principal-agent problem, anyone?
It is curious that when it comes to discussing money and sports all the focus is on football and men’s basketball, with their athletes and coaches coming in for all of the discussion. Most seem to think that these two sports generate vast sums of money that enriches the professoriate and academic administrators. Actually most of the money generated by these two sports goes to support a host of other men’s and women’s sports programs. Take a look at the sports supported by athletic programs at major universities and with a few rare exceptions, all operate at a vast loss. Probably only a few of hs have taken in matches in golf, rowing, wrestling, soccer, fencing, baseball, field hockey or softball. None of these sports generate profits and all require coaches, uniforms, travel and equipment to say nothing of facilities and sports medicine programs. And while you are at it, remember that Title 9 requires parity in programs for females and males. Basketball and football are not huge profit centers for universities. Actually most Division 1 universities lose money on their athletic programs.