Despite tightened budgets, there is a spending spree in women’s college basketball and South Carolina could be next in line to write a check.

On May 21 UConn announced it had agreed to a contract extension with Geno Auriemma. It was an unusual Friday afternoon news dump - those are normally reserved for bad news, not extending a Hall of Fame coach. The extension, which goes until 2025 with options for up to two additional seasons, plus a guarantee of an athletics department job if he wants it, is viewed as the contract that will lead into 67-year old Auriemma’s eventual retirement.

It also bumped Auriemma’s salary by about $400,000 annually, up to $2.8 million. That bump, not the years or the retirement plan, may have been the key part of the extension: it ended Kim Mulkey’s one-month reign as the highest paid coach in women’s college basketball. Actually, since the raise was made retroactive to last season, maybe she never was.

At least that’s how it appears. There is always some sleight of hand with coaching contracts (Auriemma’s actual “salary” is $600,000. He also makes $2.2 million for “speaking, consulting, and media obligations” - i.e. doing his job), and there is an extra level with Mulkey since Baylor is a private institution and didn’t have to reveal her contract details. That’s without getting into bonuses, which can range from difficult to obtain (winning a national championship) to virtual certainties (being ranked). LSU AD Scott Woodward claimed Mulkey’s LSU and Baylor contracts were “Essentially … the exact same contract,” but Mulkey said there was a slight raise, and the best reported numbers back that up. Mulkey went from making around $2.3 million at Baylor, just behind Auriemma, to just over $2.5 million, a figure that not only (temporarily) made her the highest paid women’s coach, but made her higher-paid than LSU men’s coach Will Wade. You’d have to be incredibly naive to think those numbers didn’t matter to Mulkey.

This tit-for-tat between two millionaires may be about ego and a few dollars here and there, plus this is a rare instance where the business of college athletics actually makes sense. Auriemma has 11 championships and deserves to be the highest-paid coach, and Mulkey and Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, who reportedly makes $2.3 million, each have three (and more recent titles) and deserve to be right behind. All other active coaches combined have a total of three.

But coaching salaries and program budgets are booming everywhere despite revenue shortfalls caused by the pandemic (and, if you are still being petty about it, the NCAA’s insistence that nobody cares about women’s basketball). Sticking with LSU, Mulkey’s predecessor, Nikki Fargas, made just $750,000 annually and according to Forbes LSU spent less than $4.3 million total on women’s basketball last season. Needless to say, that number is going to jump significantly not only because of Mulkey’s salary, but also because she was promised better resources (not surprisingly LSU raised ticket prices for women’s basketball to help pay for the massive increase in spending on women’s basketball).

Last week Maryland’s Brenda Frese, who owns one of those other three championships, signed a new six-year contract that came with a raise to about $1.4 million per year. She’s only the most recent coach to cash in (put a pin in this for later).

Arizona’s Adia Barnes got bumped into the $1 million range with her five-year, $5.85 million extension. She had agreed to a raise and extension before the NCAA Tournament. Then she led the Wildcats to a surprise appearance in the title game and Baylor came calling after Mulkey left, so Arizona sweetened the deal to seven figures annually and made her the second-highest paid coach in the Pac-12. Barnes was the second Pac-12 coach to get a big raise in 2021. Oregon's Kelly Graves signed an extension in January that averages $1 million annually. As Barnes wrote in an ESPN.com column, “This is my value, and this is what I deserve and I'm asking for it.” She could be speaking for everyone.

Iowa’s Lisa Bluder, Iowa State’s Bill Fennelly, and Indiana’s Teri Moren all signed extensions that came with raises. Georgia’s Joni Taylor was rewarded for being named SEC Coach of the Year with an extension and raise.

Staying in the SEC, Ole Miss gave Yolett McPhee-McCuin an extension in March, and while it wasn’t clear if McPhee-McCuin got a raise, she did get more money for her staff. Auburn hasn’t released the details of new coach Johnnie Harris’ contract, but Auburn had to pay to fire Terri Williams-Flournoy and then hire Harris, which costs money. Plus Harris was able to lure accomplished assistants like Bob Starkey to Auburn, which surely wasn’t cheap. The terms of Vanderbilt’s contract with Stephanie White were never released either, but she was fired and Shea Ralph was hired, which, again, costs money.

That’s five SEC programs that have handed out new contracts this spring. Two others - Kentucky and Mississippi State - made coaching changes last year. Both programs saved money with the new hires, but in neither case did it seem like cutting costs was the motivation behind the hire: Kentucky hired top assistant Kyra Elzy and then sprang for Hall of Famer Gail Goestenkors to be an assistant, while Nikki McCray was one of the hottest names on the market. In fact, there appears to be only one instance of the pandemic impacting contract negotiations. Last April Arkansas and Mike Neighbors, who has outperformed his $482,000 per year deal (initially $600,000 before being restructured so Arkansas would pay more of Neighbors' Washington buyout), announced last summer that due to the pandemic they had agreed to pause negotiations on a contract extension. A year later there is still no new contract.

In fact, every coach in the SEC has signed a new contract or an extension since 2018 except for three. You probably see where this is going. All three signed in 2017: Cam Newbauer, Gary Blair, and Dawn Staley. Newbauer is entering the final year of a five-year contract he signed in March of 2017. Given the strides Florida has made in the past couple of seasons he is probably in line for an extension this summer. Then it gets interesting.

Remember Brenda Frese from a few paragraphs ago? She has one of those three championships that don’t belong to Auriemma, VanDerveer, or Mulkey. The other two, of course, belong to Blair and Staley and both signed their last contract in 2017, but those are about the only two similarities. Blair’s contract expires this summer, and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to get anything done. Blair is 75, but he has given no indication he intends to retire and has been a bargain for a championship-winning coach at $800,000 per year. An extension seems to be a formality, although seeing two assistants leave from a staff that has had very little turnover makes you wonder if they know something the rest of us don’t.

That leaves Staley, who last signed an extension in April 2017 following the Gamecocks’ national championship. Staley makes about $1.7 million annually, which is believed to be the fifth-highest annual salary (the big three plus Texas is paying Vic Schaefer $1.8 million), and her contract runs through 2025. Staley has the dollars and the years, so she certainly doesn’t need a new deal. And yet seemingly everyone else has gotten a new contract.

Once again, you see where this is going. Ohio State’s Kevin McGuff appears to be the only coach making seven figures who has an older contract than Staley, and the Buckeyes have had their share of turmoil over the past few seasons. South Carolina, on the other hand, has become a juggernaut since 2017. Thirteen of the sixteen programs that made this year’s Sweet 16 have inked new coaching contracts since the last time South Carolina did. The exceptions were Staley, Blair, and VanDerveer. Staley may not deserve the same money as VanDerveer, Mulkey, or Auriemma, but Staley could certainly walk into Ray Tanner’s office and demand to know why she’s making less than a guy she is 13-3 against and 7-0 against in the postseason. Or demand raises for Lisa Boyer, Jolette Law, and Fred Chmiel. They are already well-compensated for assistant coaches (between $240,000 and $300,000 each), but they form a well-oiled machine that you want to stay together as long as possible.

Staley hasn’t gotten a raise or extension in a long time, and more than performance that puts her in line for one. Essentially it boils down to “everyone else has increased spending or gotten a new contract in the past five years, why haven’t we?” Maybe Staley has already called Tanner. Maybe she is willing to wait, or maybe she bets on herself. Maybe she waits until next summer when finances have stabilized post pandemic. Maybe she waits until she can walk into the meeting as an Olympic gold-medal winning coach who is coming off back-to-back Final Fours and perhaps another national championship.

However it works out, the paydays are coming. It’s now when, not if, South Carolina and Staley have their turn at the table.

***Almost all of the coaches mentioned returned part of their salary last year to help offset revenue losses due to the pandemic. Contract figures represent the original value.***