Gamecocks’ Dawn Staley receives contract bump | USC Gamecocks Sports

COLUMBIA — Dawn Staley is running out of tags to attach to her storied tenure at South Carolina, but the latest one is certainly welcomed.

“Highest-paid” does have a nice ring to it — or in Staley’s case, three rings.

USC on Friday made Staley the top earner in the history of women’s college basketball, elevating her current salary (which was $3.2 million this year) to $4 million and extending her contract through the 2029-30 season. Staley is now also believed to be the highest-paid female coach in the world in any sport.

Her old contract, presented after the 2021-22 season when she won her second national championship, maxed out at $3.5 million in the 2027-28 season. But Staley led the Gamecocks to a 38-0 season in 2023-24 with her third national championship, which deserved another raise.

The new deal maxes out at $5.25 million in 2029-30. Staley also received a one-time bonus of $500,000 for signing the contract.

She is now the second-highest paid coach on campus, trailing football coach Shane Beamer. Beamer is set to make $6.625 million next season.

LSU’s Kim Mulkey, who is making $3.25 million this year on her way to a max-out of $3.65 million in 2028-29, once had the highest women’s basketball salary. She was surpassed in June 2024 when Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma moved ahead on the strength of an extension that is paying him $3.34 million this season.

Staley has surpassed each with her new deal, just like she has on the court. The Gamecocks have beaten UConn in five of their last six meetings, including in the 2022 national championship game, while Staley has yet to lose to Mulkey in four tries since the coach took over at LSU before the 2021-22 season, including last season’s SEC Tournament championship game.

The No. 5 Tigers visit Colonial Life Arena to play the Gamecocks on Jan. 23. The No. 6 Huskies arrive on Feb. 16.

Staley’s buyout terms also changed. Under her old deal, USC would have owed Staley $1.5 million if they were to terminate the deal after this season, with decreasing sums for each successive year. Staley would have owed USC $3.5 million if she terminated the deal after this season, with the sum decreasing to $2 million in the final year of the deal.

The new terms are that USC would owe Staley the full amount of the remaining contract if she were to be terminated, which could be lessened should Staley get another college job. If Staley wants to terminate the deal herself, she would owe USC the full amount of the remaining contract, with one exception.

If Staley were to take an assistant or head coach job in the NBA or WNBA, she would owe USC nothing. Staley has been contacted by multiple NBA teams over the past few years to talk about their head-coaching positions.

Her incentives remained the same. Staley hit every one last year and earned an extra $680,000.

Staley finished her 16th season at USC in April with her third title and just the 10th perfect season in women’s college basketball history. She did it despite replacing every starter from a 2022-23 team that went 36-1 and advanced to the Final Four.

She is 269-31 since 2016-17, the year of her first title, and 121-12 in the SEC. The Gamecocks have won eight SEC regular-season championships, eight SEC Tournaments and advanced to six Final Fours under Staley’s leadership, and since the new decade began, USC has been the best program in the country.

Since 2019-20, the season with no NCAA Tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Gamecocks are a glittering 184-10 and have lost just three SEC regular-season games. They were 32-1 that season and certainly seemed destined for the Final Four but settled for making it in every season since.

USC is 126-4 over the past 3½ seasons and has won 91 of its past 93 games, an SEC-record 52 straight regular-season league games and two national championships. The Gamecocks were ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 for 61 of 63 weeks coming into this season before being knocked out by UCLA, but USC hasn’t lost since and is currently ranked No. 2.