How much is a national championship in football worth these days? For Clemson it is about $2.8 million.
That’s the combined amount the Clemson football staff will receive in bonuses, the school confirmed on Thursday, after winning the program’s first national championship in 35 years. The Tigers beat Alabama, 35-31, in Tampa, Fla., on Jan. 9 to win the national title.
Normally, handing out $2.8 million in bonuses would hurt an athletic department. But after giving out more than $2 million in bonuses last year when the Tigers advanced to the national title game, the athletic department took out an insurance policy to cover parts of the bonuses should the Tigers get back to the title game.
RiskPointe Consulting, an insurance broker out of Atlanta, saved the Clemson Athletic Department $1.06 million.
“Every once in a while, you take some opportunities, you evaluate them, and Graham Neff and Eric George of our business office did a really good job of looking at what types of businesses or entities out there did this work and we got a good company to come in,” Radakovich said. “We sat down and talked about it and they gave us a number of different scenarios that we could have engaged in.
“We chose one and Dabo and the players made us look smart.”
For winning the national championship, as well as an ACC Championship, head coach Dabo Swinney received $1.45 million in bonuses and incentives. Each of Swinney’s nine on-field assistant coaches, associate athletic director for football administration Woody McCorvey and strength and conditioning coach Joey Batson received an extra $95,000 for bringing the title back to Clemson.
Roughly another $300,000 in bonuses was divided among 16 other members of the football staff.
Those bonuses were contractual and were not a part of the $489,750 non-contractual sport specific staff football bonuses that the Clemson Board of Trustees Compensation Committee approved on Thursday during its quarterly meeting.
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