The value of the contract extension given to University of Michigan head coach Mike Bottom earlier this year is over $1.1 million if he serves out the full length of the contract. The deal is written for 5 years, through the 2026-2027 season.
Bottom’s previous 5-year contract expired at the end of the 2021-2022 season, and the Board of Regents signed the new agreement on May 19. The original terms were agreed to in a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in early February.
The contract includes $1,061,626 in total salary over 5 years, plus an additional $20,000 annual supplement for activities like television, radio, and internet appearances, apparel sponsorships, consulting, promotion, and other services.
The first year’s base salary is $204,000, and it increases by a small amount each year thereafter. Bottom’s previous contract included a base salary of $200,000 in each year of the contract, which itself was a renegotiation from a prior version of the contract that was to escalate from $165,000 in 2016-2017 to $185,000 in 2020-2021.
Annual Compensation
| Contract Year | Dates | Annualized Base Salary | Annual Supplement |
Total Annual Compensation
|
| 1 | 4/1/2022-3/31/2023 | $204,000 | $20,000 | $224,000 |
| 2 | 4/1/2023-3/31/2024 | $208,080 | $20,000 | $228,080 |
| 3 | 4/1/2024-3/31/2025 | $212,242 | $20,000 | $232,242 |
| 4 | 4/1/2025-3/31/2026 | $216,487 | $20,000 | $236,487 |
| 5 | 4/1/2026-3/31/2027 | $220,817 | $20,000 | $240,817 |
Bottom’s salary structure has not changed:
| Achievement | Bonus | Year 1 Value | Year 2 Value | Year 3 Value | Year 4 Value | Year 5 Value |
| Big Ten Conference Champions | 1 Month Base Salary | $17,000.00 | $17,340.00 | $17,686.83 | $18,040.58 | $18,401.42 |
| NCAA Championship Top 16 | 1 Month Base Salary | $17,000.00 | $17,340.00 | $17,686.83 | $18,040.58 | $18,401.42 |
| NCAA Championship Top 8 | 1.5 Months Base Salary | $25,500.00 | $26,010.00 | $26,530.25 | $27,060.87 | $27,602.13 |
| NCAA Championship Top 4 | 2 Months Base Salary | $34,000.00 | $34,680.00 | $35,373.66 | $36,081.16 | $36,802.84 |
| NCAA Champions | 3 Months Base Salary | $51,000.00 | $52,020.00 | $53,060.49 | $54,121.74 | $55,204.26 |
The agreement comes with other fringe benefits, including a car, tickets to University of Michigan football and basketball games, and the rights to run summer swim camps out of University of Michigan facilities.
Bottom will turn 71 years old in 2027, the year when the current contract is set to expire.
Bottom has been the head coach of the men’s swimming & diving program at Michigan for the last 13 years, and has also led the women’s program for the last eight seasons beginning in 2013.
During his time with the Wolverines, Bottom has coached the men’s team to eight top-10 finishes at the NCAA Championships, highlighted by winning the national title in 2013.
He also helped propel the women’s team to three straight Big Ten Championship titles from 2016 to 2018, the program’s first conference three-peat since 1996-98.
Bottom is a six-time winner of the Big Ten Men’s Swimming Coach of the Year, earning five straight titles from 2011 to 2015 and then adding another in 2020. He was also named CSCAA Coach of the Year in 2013.
Bottom has also coached more than a dozen Olympians over the course of his career, most recently Canadian Olympic gold medalist Maggie MacNeil.
Michigan’s men’s team finished 3rd at the 2022 Big Ten Championships and 22nd at the NCAA Championships. That was the team’s lowest finish since placing 25th at the 1986 NCAA Championship meet. The women finished 7th at the NCAA Championships, even after MacNeil suffered an elbow injury by slipping on the wet pool deck, impacting her performance there.
Since then, the team’s two male U.S. Olympians, Jake Mitchell (Florida) and Patrick Callan (Cal) have both transferred out of the program. So too did the aforementioned Olympic champion Maggie MacNeil, first to Cal and then to LSU, though she announced plans to explore a transfer prior to the start of the 2022 NCAA season.
This vote of confidence in the coach right now seems strange given the rash of transfers we have seen from both the women’s and men’s programs? Is this program on the right trajectory? Guess the athletics admin thought so. As for the amounts – given salary appreciation in corporate america, swim coaching isn’t a particularly lucrative career choice vs. almost anything else! First year business grads at good schools (like Michigan) are making over 100k in many cases.
Sounds like a lot until you realize he makes less than some awful mid major football and basketball coaches. Coaches that can’t even win their own mid major conference, or even have a winning record, and before you get up in arms about how much money football brings in, mid major football, unless making bowl games and playing well year after year, are not making anywhere near what they’re spending
How does this kind of salary compare to other coaches around the world? What can employed national team coaches expect to be paid, working in training centres for example?
How does Mike’s or other collage coaches salaries, stack up against other swim coaches, say employed National team / National training centre coaches from around the world compare?
NCAA Championship Top 16 > 1 Month Base Salary
why? why give someone a bonus when they perform below expectations? I assume with Michigan’s resources, it should be easy to get into the top 16.
We need to make swimming as big as college football bring in Nick Saben
I agree completely!
This is actually less than I was expecting from a top coach. I suppose he is likely to get around $40-$50k bonus every year, so $250k is a fantastic salary. But compared to the millions per year that some other coaches make it’s fairly modest.
No swim coaches make even close to a million per year
I didn’t mean swim coaches specifically. But sports coaches.
If I remember correctly, Denis Cotterel was given something hefty by the Chinese when he was coaching them.
who cares about mike bottoms salary
Michigan taxpayers
I would also imagine Mike Bottom is fairly invested
I believe UM Athletic department is funded by football so it’s not funded by taxpayers