AUBURN — With the albatross of lacking on-field success and frequent head coach firings around its neck, Auburn football has been saddled with millions in buyout payments in recent years.
In 2020 and 2022, the program fired two different head coaches. First, it let go of Gus Malzahn after eight seasons, which included a BCS Championship appearance in his first year and another seven bowl game appearances. Malzahn’s successor, Bryan Harsin, was fired after less than two seasons.
The program spent a combined $42.48 million between 2021 and 2023 for its former employees not to be on the Jordan-Hare Stadium sidelines.
But in 2024, the athletics department seemingly turned a corner in shaking the payments to its previous head coaches.
AUBURN’S 2024 SPENDING: How much did Auburn football make, spend? How did other AU athletic programs fare?
According to Auburn’s 2024 NCAA financial report, which was obtained via open records request by the Montgomery Advertiser and the USA TODAY Network, the football program spent $6.27 million on buyouts over the past year. That’s down from the $18.56 million it spent in 2023, and it’s the smallest amount it has spent in that category since 2020, when it recorded $590,184 in buyout spending.
Where has Auburn football’s buyout spending gone? A recent history
When Auburn fired Malzahn, he was at the end of the third season on a seven-year, $49-million contract he signed following the 2017 campaign, 75% of which was guaranteed. It meant $21.45 million was owed to him, with half of the total, at around $10.27 million, due within 30 days of termination, per the terms of his contract.
The other half of the balance was to be paid in equal, annual installments of approximately $2.68 million over the next four years.
Harsin’s contract was similarly structured, and at the time of his firing in October 2022, he was owed 70% of what remained on a six-year, $31.5-million dollar contract. That came out to about $15.57 million in buyout money. Like Malzahn, half of that total was due within 30 days of his termination.
Here’s a look at how the buyout spending has shaken out for Auburn in recent years.
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2024: $6,266,733
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2023: $18,557,278
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2022: $7,830,703
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2021: $16,088,482
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2020: $590,184
Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at acole@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: What did Auburn football spend on buyouts in 2024?
