UW, Chryst agree on $11M buyout
MADISON – University of Wisconsin officials are set to pay former head football coach Paul Chryst a buyout of $11 million.
The payment is to be made no later than February 1, 2023.
According to athletic director Chris McIntosh, Chryst was due to receive paid 85% of the remaining value of his five-year contract after being fired Sunday.
That was $20,263,434.
“We agreed to $11 million,” McIntosh said Monday, “in one or two installments.”
McIntosh stressed the money will come from private funds in the UW Foundation.
“Everybody wants to be assured that they’re not taxpayer dollars,” McIntosh said. “They are drawn from the annual fund, which is contributed to through a combination of ways.
“But those are private dollars we are using.”
UW officials last October gave Chryst a new contract which included a raise of about $900,000 and a total compensation package of $5.25 million per year.
McIntosh told reporters Sunday night he and Chryst had agreed to a buyout significantly less than was called for in the contract.
The agreement is obviously good for UW. But why would Chryst agree to take less money? Chryst was not available Monday but he had, under the terms of his contract, a duty to mitigate in the buyout section.
In short, if Chryst took a Division I coaching job or a job in pro football during the term of the liquidated damages, UW officials could deduct money from the buyout.
That term now ends on Feb. 1. In addition, his annual compensation package for the bulk of his sevenplus seasons at UW generally left him in the middle of the pack or lower among Big Ten coaches. Even after he received the new contract last year, he was the eighth-highest Big Ten coach according to USA Today.
Chryst never appeared to be concerned less experienced and less successful coaches were being paid more annually.