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Georgia Tech’s ACC championship rang up a bonus for coach Josh Pastner. However, it also kicked in a clause in the athletic department’s contract with Adidas that will more than cover it.
Winning the ACC championship triggered a clause in Pastner’s contract that earns him an extra $50,000 on top of his salary of $2 million. A spot in the NCAA Tournament is worth another $25,000, meaning he already is due an extra $75,000.
A win Friday against Loyola would earn him $50,000 and a second-round win would boost the total to $75,000. (Bonuses earned through the NCAA Tournament are not cumulative.)
A Sweet 16 win would bring the total to $100,000, Elite Eight moves the total to $150,000 and a national championship culminates in $250,000.
Pastner just missed another incentive in the most recent AP Top 25 poll. The contract awards a bonus of $10,000 if the team makes the Top 25 at any point in the season, and the Yellow Jackets were one spot out of the poll. Pastner would earn a $30,000 bonus for being in the top 10 of the final poll.
The ACC championship and NCAA Tournament incentives are the first that Pastner has reached for on-court performance since his first season, when he collected $15,000 for making the NIT (that incentive was valid for only the first three years of his contract) and $35,000 for being named ACC coach of the year. (He has earned a $100,000 bonus each year for his team earning an NCAA-measured Academic Progress Rate score over 950.)
Pastner is in the fifth year of a contract that was extended to seven years after his initial season, meaning that he has two years remaining. It is worth an total of $13.6 million for the seven years. With the ACC championship and the NCAA berth, an extension is highly possible.
On the other side of the ledger, the championship triggered a clause that will more than double the cash retainer fee that Adidas pays Tech annually. Adidas will now be on the hook for $450,000 in cash yearly. The initial deal called for $200,000 each year in cash (in addition to between $2.9 million and 3.1 million in gear) and an extra $100,000 earmarked for marketing, but allowed for the amount to grow by varying amounts if the football or men’s basketball hit one of seven different targets, including an ACC championship.
The $200,000 is a low figure for apparel deals with power-conference schools, but the possibility for the annual cash payment to grow based on meeting performance targets such as national and conference championships is an unusual feature, Jonathan Jensen, a professor for sports administration at the University of North Carolina, told the AJC in 2018.
The ACC championship also met an incentive clause for a one-time bonus that will be worth $150,000 to Tech.
Tech is in the third year of its six-year agreement with Adidas.
