Sources: Vols’ White to be SEC’s greatest paid advertisement

• Pete Thamel, ESPNAug 29, 2024, 08:45 AM ET

Tennessee is modifying athletic director Danny White’s agreement to give him a pay raise, which will make him the highest paid athletic director in the SEC, sources informed ESPN.According to the

new regards to the handle an amended agreement, White will leap to an annual base pay of$ 2.75 million, per sources. His contract stays a six-year, rolling deal that’s through July of 2030.

The reward structure of the contract allows him to earn more, as he can earn up to $600,000, a maximum that increased from $300,000. His private flight gain access to also increases to “10 one-way occupied flights” from six.White’s base salary is increased from$2.2 million and presses him atop of the brand-new 16-team SEC. Texas’Chris Del Conte is slated to make$2.32 million in the financial 2025 year.(His number likewise increases with bonuses.)White has assisted resuscitate Tennessee from the

depths of a football ineptitude, management incompetence and searing NCAA issues. His essential move was employing football coach Josh Heupel, who brought energy and winning back to the Vols’ program. That assisted turn the battleship to making Tennessee a winner on the field and start the athletic department to both a precipitous profits and fundraising uptick.Since being hired in 2021, the athletic department has actually constructed to the point where it experienced the best general year in athletics in school history last year. That included a baseball national title and the school’s greatest finish, No. 3, in the Learfield Director’s Cup that assesses total department success.Tennessee was among simply 2 power conference schools to send out every program to the postseason in 2023-24. The Vols baseball champion was the athletic

department’s very first national title considering that 2009. Tennessee likewise has won three-straight SEC all-sports trophies.White pertained to Tennessee from UCF in 2021, and he arrived with a reputation for bold leadership. He ‘d earned attention and analysis for boasting about a nationwide title in football for UCF in 2017 and helped

fuel that school’s increase to a power conference program that ultimately signed up with the Huge 12. He reached Tennessee with the school reeling from the disastrous hire of former coach Phil Fulmer as athletic director, a failed move after a flailing coaching search that yielded Jeremy Pruitt. The Pruitt hire left Tennessee on probation and facing an $8 million fine from the NCAA, and a program that went 3-7 in 2020 and was running under the cloud of scandal.White deftly led Tennessee through the NCAA concerns, which significantly included no postseason restriction despite allegations of 18 Level I violations.White is the child of previous Duke and Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White, and his sibling, Brian, is the athletic director at Florida Atlantic. Another bro, Mike, is the basketball coach at Georgia.