College football’s regular season is over, which means many schools are digging deep into their pockets to give their programs a new direction.

As of Monday afternoon, 15 FBS head coaches had been fired during the season or since it ended Saturday, with schools owing more than $36 million in buyout fees. That’s a sharp decrease from the record sum of more than $118 million in 2023, led by the $76 million Texas A&M paid to Jimbo Fisher.

Here are the biggest known college football coaching buyouts of 2024:

• West Virginia: Neal Brown, $9.77 million
• Purdue: Ryan Walters, $9.34 million
• FAU: Tom Herman, $4.18 million
• North Carolina: Mack Brown, $2.81 million
• East Carolina: Mike Houston, $2.8 million
• UMass: Don Brown, $1.4 million
• Charlotte: Biff Poggi, $1.3 million
• FIU: Mike MacIntyre, $1.14 million
• Rice: Mike Bloomgren, $900,000
• Southern Miss: Will Hall, $892,000
• Kennesaw State: Brian Bohannon, $605,000
• Ball State: Mike Neu, $550,000
• Appalachian State: Shawn Clark, $500,000

Those figures come from Front Office Sports research, including publicly available contract information, USA Today’s CFB head coach salary tracker, and other various reports and estimates. Offset language in some contracts could mean schools won’t owe the full amount should the fired coach take a job elsewhere. 

Buyouts for fired coaches from private schools are not always made public, including Tulsa’s Kevin Wilson. A figure for Stan Drayton’s buyout at Temple, which is public, is also unavailable.

Gus Malzahn appears to have forfeited most of the $12 million in buyout money he would have received from UCF (had he been fired after a 4–8 season), where he just resigned as head coach so that he could take Florida State’s offensive coordinator job.

Who’s Next?

With conference championship games, Bowl Season, and the College Football Playoff still to be played, the CFP coaching carousel could still be spinning. 

Ohio State coach Ryan Day is perhaps on the hottest seat after the Buckeyes’ fourth-straight loss to rival Michigan. He has the 17th most expensive buyout in the country at more than $37 million, according to USA Today.

Both Florida coach Billy Napier and Florida State’s Mike Norvell were on the hot seat early this season. But the Gators finished the season 7–5 on a three-game win streak after committing beyond this season to Napier, who would have been owed a buyout of more than $26 million. 

Florida beat its in-state rival Saturday to give Florida State a 2–10 record just one season after winning the ACC with an undefeated mark of 13–0. Despite the poor season, Norvell doesn’t look to be going anywhere, as his $63 million buyout is the third highest in the nation.

The Rays’ fractious stadium situation has reached something of a stalemate, with the team responding to recent county demands by pointing a finger right back at the public officials. 

Four days after Pinellas County, Fla., county commission chair Kathleen Peters called on the Rays to make a clear statement on their intentions for a $1.3 billion stadium in St. Petersburg, the club reiterated its claim that the city and county have failed to meet their responsibilities. 

“When it comes to honoring the spirit of the new ballpark agreements, it is Pinellas County, not the Rays, that falls short,” team co-president Matt Silverman wrote in a response letter to Peters. 

Silverman’s comments are the latest turn in a stadium development that once seemed sure but is now anything but as the Tampa area continues to grapple with the devastating effects of Hurricane Milton. Both the county and city of St. Petersburg delayed votes last month to approve bonding that would combine to cover nearly half of the stadium cost. 

Both jurisdictions are likely to revisit the issue in the coming weeks, but an altered county commission membership has brought new skepticism to the public funding for the ballpark. Already, the Rays have said a 2028 target date to complete the new stadium has been missed because of the recent public-sector actions and introduced additional costs that the team is responsible for and says it cannot afford.

“The Rays have always made it clear that the viability of the project depended on having certainty about the project’s approval and funding prior to the 2024 November elections,” Silverman wrote. “We would not have gone forward with the project if a future Pinellas County Commission had the ability to revoke the approval we all celebrated in July, or to unilaterally delay the project’s completion into 2029.”

Will Anybody Blink?

As the standoff continues, neither side appears willing to be the one to formally cut short the ballpark project, the centerpiece of a larger, $6.5 billion redevelopment of St. Petersburg’s Historic Gas Plant District. Additionally at issue is the ownership of the 65 acres of public land in question. If the stadium deal dies and the Rays aren’t issuing the official termination, it’s expected that the club will still control the property. 

“While publicly the Rays organization has said ‘the deal is dead,’ their written statement is in contrast,” Peters said after receiving Silverman’s letter. “Despite the Rays’ lack of political prowess of late, I’ve always been optimistic about this project because of the great economic impact it would bring to our county.”

Max Verstappen walked out of Qatar with his ninth win of the season, a week after he clinched the Formula One drivers’ championship. But even with the win, Red Bull left the Lusail International Circuit officially out of the running for the constructors’ championship with one race left.

Sergio Pérez, Red Bull’s second driver, did not finish and failed to score any points for the sixth time this season. The gap between Pérez and Verstappen is 227 points, the largest between a champion and his teammate since the new points system was adopted in 2010. 

A day after the race, the team decided to remove Pérez from the grid, according to ESPN.

The 34-year-old Mexican driver, who has earned $96.6 million in 14 years in F1, according to Spotrac, signed a contract extension with the team earlier this year that locked him in until 2026. This reportedly means Red Bull cannot remove him from the team immediately, and he may need to fulfill another role on the team—like as an ambassador—unless he chooses to end the relationship with the team himself and potentially drive elsewhere.

Liam Lawson, the driver for Red Bull’s sister team, RB, is reportedly a lead candidate to replace Pérez. Williams driver Franco Colapinto is also in the mix.

Performance Cost

Pérez’s poor performance has essentially cost Red Bull tens of millions of dollars. The prize money each team receives depends on where they finish in the standings, and while that number is not disclosed, Sky Sports reported the purse is 50% of F1’s commercial-rights revenue for the season.

Teams’ prizes range from 6% to 14%, depending on final results, meaning last year’s pot was $1.6 billion—though there is some given away toward other bonuses. Red Bull, the 2023 constructors’ champion, received an estimated $140 million, while each place below received about $9 million less than the team above it. 

McLaren heads to the final race in Abu Dhabi with a 21-point advantage over Ferrari in the constructors’ championship. Red Bull trails the Scuderia by 38 points, meaning there are only a few scenarios where the team can finish in second in the championship—which all involve one of their drivers winning the race and neither of the Ferrari drivers finishing sixth or better.