Job perks: Wright State basketball coach gets bonus for reaching NCAA tournament

Wins for Wright State University in the NCAA tournament will translate to a bigger bonus for coach Scott Nagy.

Wright State men’s basketball team, seeded 14th, will take on the No. 3 seeded University of Tennessee Volunteers at 12:40 p.m. Thursday in Dallas in the first round of March Madness.

Like most other teams, Nagy’s success in the tournament can impact the bonus he gets. Nagy, who was hired as WSU head coach in 2016, has already qualified for a bonus for the Raiders simply getting an invitation to the tournament.

Nagy’s base pay is $500,000 per year and the bonus he will receive for Wright State making the tournament is equal to one month’s salary, according to a copy of his contract. The bonus amounts to around $41,666.

If the Raiders are able to pull off an upset against Tennessee, Nagy will be awarded an additional $10,000 bonus and another $10,000 for every tournament win after that as well, according to his contract. Nagy also gets eight tickets to every NCAA tournament game the Raiders play in.

If Nagy’s Raiders were instead competing in the NIT tournament, the coach would have received a bonus of just under $21,000.

“Scott Nagy was a proven winner when we hired him and he’s doing the same here at Wright State in a very short amount of time. Any contractual benefits he’ll reap from his team’s success are well deserved,” athletic director Bob Grant said in a prepared statement.

Bonuses for good seasons is a common incentive for college coaches. Former University of Dayton coach Archie Miller received a bonus of $894,867 in 2014, according to a 2015 form 990. That year the UD Flyers made it to the Elite Eight round of the tournament.

Nagy will get his bonus at a time when Wright State has had to make steep budget cuts. In June, WSU trustees slashed more than $30.8 million from the university’s budget in an attempt to begin correcting years of overspending at the university.

The university is trying to boost its reserve fund by at least $6 million this fiscal year. But, unexpected costs and revenue streams not coming in as expected have both posed a challenge though administrators are still confident they will hit their financial targets.

This news organization has reached out to Wright State for comment on this story.

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