An appearance in the national championship game in men’s basketball brought a bump in profile, prestige and finances for San Diego State. It also came with costs.
The university approved $688,617 in performance bonuses to head coach Brian Dutcher and his staff plus $90,000 in salary raises, according to records obtained by the Union-Tribune.
“If you’re paying bonuses,” Athletic Director John David Wicker said, “that means you’re successful.”
In 2006, SDSU implemented the “Coaches Performance Bonus Plan” across all sports that rewards conference titles and participation in postseason NCAA championships with an additional percentage of their annual salaries. Some head coaches, like Dutcher and football’s Brady Hoke, have separate incentive structures written into their contracts that supersede the department bonuses.
“It’s always great to be rewarded for hard work,” Dutcher said. “I have bonuses for academic performance. It’s not just all athletic based. That’s running a complete program, where you succeed at everything. I was fortunate to have a group that was successful not only on the floor but in the classroom and was rewarded for it, like a lot of the coaches on the staff were.”
Dutcher made the most, $305,000 in contractual performance bonuses that includes $150,000 for reaching the championship game, $50,000 for winning the Mountain West and $50,000 for his team hitting academic targets.
Seven members of his staff received bonuses from the department plan. The smallest was $33,990. His three assistant coaches’ bonuses ranged from $65,202 to $73,820.
The bulk of the money came from a 17 percent bonus for reaching the Final Four. They also received 8 percent for winning the Mountain West regular-season championship and another 5 percent for the conference tournament title.
The NCAA postseason bonuses start at 2 percent for participation, then jump to 15 percent for a trip to baseball or softball’s College World Series and 17 percent for basketball’s Final Four or a semifinal appearance in the College Football Playoff. There is no in-between incentive for softball reaching the Super Regional last spring or the three previous Sweet 16s that the men’s basketball team reached before losing.
The bonuses are contingent on teams meeting certain academic and budget thresholds, and they require the recommendation of the athletic director, senior vice president for financial affairs and the university president.
The $688,617 payout comes at a time of budget constraints amid declining football ticket revenue and SDSU’s failed bid to join the Pac-12, where its members received about $30 million more per year in conference distributions from television and bowl revenues than in the Mountain West.
“We have money budgeted every year for bonuses,” Wicker said. “This year, it’s a little more. But we also get some additional money from the conference office, and we’ll get more conference dollars the next couple years based on (NCAA Tournament payouts). Some years, bonuses are little less. Some years, they’re a little more.”
Mountain West schools keep a small percentage of NCAA Tournament revenue they generate, which is paid over six years and otherwise distributed equally among the conference’s membership. This year, SDSU received $6.6 million from the conference, about $1 million more than the average distribution.
That distribution will increase over the next six years because of the Mountain West’s historic performance in the 2023 tournament, where four teams received invites and the Aztecs’ run to the championship game was worth about $10 million alone.
Dutcher’s three assistant coaches also got $30,000 salary bumps that amounted to 12 to 14 percent for the 2023-24 season, part of an effort by SDSU to retain them in an ever-competitive job market. David Velasquez is now at $272,736, Chris Acker at $265,404 and JayDee Luster at $244,008.
“This exemplary year,” said a June 29 letter from Associate Athletic Director Jenny Bramer to Human Resources justifying the raises, “highlights the effort it takes to assemble the right people, daily preparation to excel, and creation of an environment that allows those people to achieve at a higher level than even they believed possible. Funding for this request comes from an existing budget line with the increase funded through program enhancements.”
SDSU President Adela de la Torre signed off on the raises on July 8.
The extra puts SDSU’s assistants at or near the top of the Mountain West but below what most power conference assistants, who make in the mid-$300,000s or low $400,000s at the top programs. Michigan’s three assistants, for example, made $468,000, $390,000 and $344,000 last year.
All three SDSU assistants, according to multiple sources, were approached about higher paying jobs following the NCAA Tournament. All opted to stay, either out of loyalty, happiness or because many positions were already filled by the time the Aztecs finished playing in early April.
Two members of the staff left: Athletic Trainer Justin Landry to Georgia Tech and Director of Player Development JD Pollock to pursue non-basketball business opportunities in Texas.
“We’re always going to want to be at the top of the Mountain West Conference from a salary standpoint,” Wicker said. “We’re very clear with all of our teams that that’s our goal. We always tell people, ‘If it’s about the money, you’re probably going to need to go somewhere else. But we’re going to support you as best we can.’
“We know we’ll never compete with power conferences. But we provide a great experience for coaches and the opportunity to grow and take the next better job — not just the next job, the next better job.”
Wicker put an informal hold on many coaches’ contracts last spring, waiting to see if SDSU was invited to join a power conference.
“Not making the move to the Pac-12 affects that because we’re not making as much TV money, so money is harder to come by,” Dutcher said. “They’ve always taken care of us in Aztecs basketball, so if we continue to perform at a high level, we’ll be rewarded for that. But we know it’s not as easy as it would have been if we were getting more TV money.”
Dutcher made $1.33 million before bonuses last season as part of a six-year contract extension that goes through 2025-26. That ranked 67th nationally, according to USA Today’s college basketball salary database, and would have been 11th in the Pac-12 (Stanford’s salary figures aren’t publicly available). Seven Pac-12 coaches have salaries at least double that of Dutcher’s.
Dan Hurley from national champion Connecticut made just under $3 million per year before bonuses last season and signed a six-year extension over the summer worth an average of $5.35 million per year.
“We will eventually get something figured out with Dutch,” Wicker said. “Obviously, we held up on a lot of contracts just because we thought we would be negotiating different numbers (as part of the Pac-12). But we’ll sit down and have something finalized at some point, I would assume, before this basketball season is over.”
