Clemson Football: Will Dabo Swinney take a pay cut for 2020 season?

Will Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney take a pay cut for 2020 season?

As much as we all desire to see a normal 2020 Clemson football season, the truth is that the likelihood of that happening is growing dimmer by the moment.

While most are still holding out hope that we see Clemson football take the field this fall with fans in some capacity, everyone has to agree that this will by no means be a normal College Football season.

Playing in a pandemic presents its own set of unique challenges, most of which we probably aren’t even aware of yet. While many analysts are pushing for the season to be pushed back to the spring, it’s clear that officials aren’t ready to do that just yet.

If at all possible, College Football has made it clear that they want to play in the fall. But what would that mean to see a season where Death Valley could only hold up to 50-percent capacity for Clemson football fans? What if that number is significantly less? What if that number is zero fans?

No fans means no ticket revenue and great economic losses that won’t just be felt at Clemson University, but by businesses around the University, as well as surrounding towns.

Though we aren’t clear on anything as of yet pertaining to the 2020 season, there is an interesting trend already being set by many college coaches for this year: They’re (voluntarily or involuntarily) taking pay cuts.

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney could join the trend

If we are going to have College Football this fall, it’s clear that there will be revenue losses. At this point, there’s just not much hope that we have full stadiums- at least not according to what health and governing officials are telling us currently.

If stadiums aren’t full, there are going to be revenue losses (even with television contracts in place) and Dabo Swinney, like other College Football coaches, will have an opportunity to help offset some of those losses by voluntarily taking a pay cut.

Swinney’s contract calls for an average pay of $9.3 million per year through the year 2028. Could he potentially restructure the deal so that, perhaps, $7 million of that is paid to him over the course of the 2021-2028 seasons? That would leave Clemson to pay him something to the tune of $2.3 million this season (a 78 percent cut) that might just save the athletic department and still allow him to receive that large sum of $93 million in the future.

Nothing is for certain yet, but knowing what I know about Dabo Swinney, I do believe he’ll do whatever is necessary to play football this season and to help Clemson.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out for Clemson football moving forward once we get some answers here in the coming weeks as to how the season is going to be played.