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UCLA Football: Jim Mora’s Contract Buyout Is Currently An Absurd $14.76 Million

By Michael Hanna

Oct 15, 2016; Pullman, WA, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Jim Mora looks on against the Washington State Cougars during the first half at Martin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 15, 2016; Pullman, WA, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Jim Mora looks on against the Washington State Cougars during the first half at Martin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports /
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A barely-publicized subsection of Jim Mora’s 2013 contract extension made his contract one of the hardest in college football to terminate and his recent extension this past summer put Mora in the realm of Steve Alford when it comes to immovable Bruin coach contracts.

Riding the momentum from a sterling start to his UCLA coaching career that included two wins out of two over USC and a Pac-12 South title, Jim Mora was pursued in the 2013 offseason by both his alma mater Washington and blue-blood Texas for their vacant coaching jobs, but turned both down in order to sign a significant extension with UCLA.

Now that his Bruin Revolution seems to be in complete tatters and the once-unthinkable prospect of UCLA firing Jim Mora has arisen in earnest, it is now becoming clear upon further reexamination that UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero gave up the farm that December in order to keep Mora on board and as a result, the Bruins will be bound to Mora for the foreseeable future unless Mora wants it to be otherwise.

In the 2013 extension (officially “UCLA Head Coach Agreement, Amendment No. 2”), Mora’s new pay schedule is spelled out in Section 2 of the extension, entitled “Amendment to Section 6 of the HC Agreement“. Here is that entire document (credit- Jack Wang, LA News Group):

Jim Mora’s 2013 UCLA contract extension by thejackwang on Scribd

As of the 2014 season, Mora began to make $300,000 per year in base salary and at least $2.95 million per year in “talent” fees, making his annual base compensation package a minimum of $3.295 million before factoring in easily-achievable team academic and athletic benchmarks.

All of which brings us to the section of the 2013 extension that currently has the UCLA AD’s budget tied up in a vice grip. Section 5 is entitled “Amendment to Section 12 of the HC Agreement“. It states that “termination without cause [meaning firing for lack of team performance – GJB] dates and amounts are deleted, and replaced with: ‘Eighty percent of the Base Salary and Talent Fee remaining to be paid in Section 6 of the Agreement, as amended by this Amendment No. 2.'”

Otherwise stated, if UCLA fires Mora because the football team simply isn’t good enough (a.k.a. “without cause”), UCLA owes him 80% of his outstanding base salaries and talent fees.

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The remaining balance on the 2013 extension after the 2016 season is complete would be $10,950,000 – $10,050,000 for the talent fees in Contract Years 6 thru 8 and $900,000 for three years of base salaries. If the 2013 extension stood on its own, Mora’s current buyout would be a substantial $8.8 million and the buyout would likely force UCLA to let Mora coach for his job next season because of the burden a Mora firing would place on its budget.

However, on June 7, 2016, less than six months after a subpar 2015 season (record: 8-5) that led Mora to hit the reset button on his entire offensive scheme, UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero decided to double down on Mora and, in the process, on the buyout as he handed Mora a two-year extension to his existing contract. Here is that entire document (credit- Thuc Nhi Nguyen, LA News Group):

Jim Mora 2016 Contract Extension by Thuc Nhi Nguyen on Scribd

The 2016 extension to the HC Agreement adds two new Contract Years, Years 9 and 10. In those two seasons, Mora will make $6.9 million in talent fees and $600,000 in base salary, creating a total base compensation package of $7.5 million for those two seasons and roughly $18.5 million over the next five seasons.

As a result of what we’ll call the 80% Termination Provision inserted into the 2013 extension (and reaffirmed in the 2016 extension), UCLA would owe Jim Mora $14.76 million should it fire him after the 2016 football season.

To emphasize the absolutely shocking nature of that number, the much-discussed buyout clause for UCLA head basketball coach Steve Alford that has caused incredible amounts of Bruin fan ire has never exceeded $10.4 million.

It goes without saying now that UCLA simply cannot fire Mora until closer to the end of the decade, even if it wanted to. The 2013 extension clause might have been understandable, given that Mora was plausibly in demand and the Bruins wanted to keep the man who had righted the ship on long-term.

But it is the 2016 extension that should have UCLA fans absolutely irate, as Mora’s suitability for the UCLA head football job was in much more doubt at that point, yet even in light of the poor 2015 season and more importantly, the insanity of prohibitive buyouts having been made crystal clear by the ongoing Alford contract debacle, Guerrero raised Mora’s buyout by nearly 75% and put the UCLA athletic department’s financial future in severe jeopardy with two contentious coaching contracts currently hanging around the department’s proverbial neck like anchors.

Worst of all, Mora has no such contractual obligations weighing him down at UCLA. The buyout in his contract is not a “mirror” clause, like it is in Alford’s contract in which Alford would owe UCLA the exact same amount if he walked away as it would owe him if he’s fired.

According to Section 4 of the 2016 extension, Mora would owe a maximum of $2 million in the event he was hired away to another school or NFL team. So UCLA made an absolute sucker’s bet on Mora’s latest extension: if Mora is really good, then it doesn’t cost a ton to pry him away from UCLA; but if he’s awful, then UCLA would have to either break the bank to cut him loose or sacrifice multiple years of the football program thanks to their negotiating mistakes. There was only one winner to emerge from the July 2016 extension and it was the guy whose dad made the word “PLAYOFFS” infamous.

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Would you like to know why Guerrero chose to pursue this course of action with Mora even after it became abundantly clear what a problem it could become after Alford? So would I. The UCLA athletic department removed Guerrero’s email address from its website, presumably because fans like to hold people in power accountable for absurd stupidity and the backscratching bureaucratic paradise that is UCLA can’t have that, but it is still presumably dguerrero@athletics.ucla.edu. Feel free to ask the UCLA athletic director why the Bruin football program is now inextricably tied to a failing coach for the foreseeable future with no plausible remedy in sight.