TCU AD Mike Buddie: Coaches, ADs Should Have a Salary Cap

Like most college sports administrators, TCU athletic director Mike Buddie thinks there should be an enforceable salary cap for players in college sports.

>But he doesn’t think they should be the only ones.

>“I think athletic directors should make a capped salary. I think coaches should make a capped salary,” Buddie said during an interview with Front Office Sports. “And I think student-athletes should be in the room helping make these decisions.”

>In college football, coaching salaries—as well as coaching buyouts—have ballooned.

>Currently, the highest-paid coaches are Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, and LSU’s Lane Kiffin, whose annual salaries all exceed $13 million per year. Athletic directors don’t make nearly as much, but—particularly in the power conferences—they can take home more than $1 million per year.

>At TCU, football coach Sonny Dykes makes more than $7 million per year (he recently signed a multiyear contract extension). Buddie’s salary isn’t public.

The concept of capping coaches’ salaries has been discussed over the past several years. And it’s also been a discussion in Congress, with lawmakers talking about the idea during hearings on college sports. In 2025, Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R., Wash.), introduced a bill to limit salaries for coaches (and potentially other athletics employees).

>But if Buddie’s plan were to be implemented, there would be legal hurdles. In 1992, a federal appeals court found that putting a cap on NCAA coaching salaries was a violation of antitrust laws in the case Law v. NCAA.

>But one mechanism could change that: collective bargaining. And that’s something Buddie, a former MLB pitcher, knows well. In the pros, salary caps and/or luxury taxes are negotiated and policed because player unions negotiate and agree to certain compensation restrictions with the league.

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