A year after Arizona State University announced a raise and contract extension for men’s basketball coach Bobby Hurley, keeping him with the Sun Devils through the 2025-26 season, the parties have not signed an enforceable contract, The Arizona Republic and USA TODAY Sports have learned.
ASU has nevertheless paid Hurley the increased salary based on a signed term sheet, which is non-binding, according to Lisa Loo, the university’s senior vice president and general counsel.
ASU refused to release the document, citing its “policies regarding the confidentiality of public records.” The terms of the unsigned contract extension were approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in April 2023 and included up to a $2 million buyout, should Hurley leave ASU early for a coaching job with another school.
But absent a signed extension, Hurley could leave ASU this summer and owe the university nothing.
His signed contract expires June 30.
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“We should have this thing done in the next couple of days,” Hurley’s agent, Matthew Kelly of Excel Sports Management, told The Republic on Tuesday, blaming the holdup on the university, which is still searching for an athletics director after Ray Anderson resigned in November. “I’d say that getting stuff done at Arizona State, and not just Ray but a lot of the folks there sometimes, it’s just a challenge, to say that in the nicest way.”
Hurley’s unsigned contract extension came to light when ASU failed to produce the document in response to an open records request by USA TODAY, which maintains a database of major NCAA college coaches’ salaries. The Republic is part of the USA TODAY Network.
ASU (14-17, 8-12) has lost five of its last six games, leading some Sun Devils fans to speculate about Hurley’s future with the program.
No. 11-seeded ASU will play No. 6 Utah at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the first round of the final Pac-12 Tournament at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Both schools move to the Big 12 Conference next year, along with Arizona and Colorado.
Hurley, one of the state’s highest-paid public employees, has led the Sun Devils to the NCAA Tournament in three of the last five years it was played, excluding the COVID-19 season, when the tournament was canceled because of the pandemic. ASU would have made the bracket that year, as well. The Sun Devils won a play-in game last year but have not advanced beyond the first round in Hurley’s tenure. He has a 155-130 record since joining Arizona State in 2015.
An unusual situation in Tempe
ASU also said it does not have a signed contract for men’s basketball assistant coach Yusuf Ali, who is in his first season with the program.
“It’s extraordinarily unusual,” said Martin Greenberg, the founder and former director of the National Sports Law Institute at Marquette University. “Most term sheets say, ‘good faith negotiation,’ they put a drop-dead date on it, which is important, and basically there is a contract that comes out of that. Even with some of the most recent hires in college football, with the jumping going on, there were term sheets and they were followed by contracts. Signed contracts. So this is unusual.”
The situation raises questions about the ASU athletics department’s business operations under Anderson, at a time when the university is still searching for his successor and its archrival, the University of Arizona, is under intense scrutiny because of financial mismanagement partially attributed to its athletics department.
The Arizona Board of Regents oversees both universities.
“The board approves terms, but universities are responsible for executing the contract,” wrote Megan Gilbertson, the Arizona Board of Regents’ associate vice president of communications, in an email to The Republic.
Gilbertson’s comment appears to contradict the first sentence of Hurley’s contract, which reads that it is executed by and between the Arizona Board of Regents for and on behalf of Arizona State University and its Department of Sun Devil Athletics, and Robert Hurley.
“I finally, about a week or two ago, got reconnected with their general counsel (at ASU),” Kelly, the coach’s agent, told The Republic, “but in the absence of Ray being there, there wasn’t really anyone to run down even these minor issues we had, so it kind of just sat. …
“I wouldn’t say it’s super alarming. But I think for obvious reasons there, and being as long as it is, I can see how it would raise a red flag.”
Hurley was paid $2.6 million in fiscal 2022, making him the state’s second-highest paid public employee, behind only former ASU football coach Herm Edwards, according to public records.
The most recent amendment to Hurley’s contract, signed in 2019, shows he was entitled to $2.7 million this season.
The unsigned contract extension announced in March 2023 added two years to Hurley’s deal, continuing his employment through June 30, 2026, and increased his annual compensation to $2.8 million on July 1, 2023.
Further opportunities for incentives
It also increases his annual compensation by another $100,000 each subsequent year and provides further opportunities to increase his salary by up to $425,000 each year based on the team’s performance.
Hurley also remains eligible for more than $2 million each year in one-time performance incentive bonuses.
The extension also would grant Hurley a $600,000 retention bonus on Jan. 1, 2026. He would still collect the full amount were he fired without cause after Jan. 1, 2025, and half were he fired without cause before then.
“Because the university expects that the contract will be finalized imminently,” a school spokesperson wrote in closing a public record request, “ASU is currently honoring the salary terms approved by the Board pending execution of the final form of the contract. However … none of the other amendment terms will take effect until the amendment is actually signed.”
Hurley, Anderson were ‘attached at the hip’
When ASU announced Hurley’s extension, the coach praised his close relationship with Anderson, who resigned eight months later amid an NCAA investigation for alleged recruiting violations by the football team and a self-imposed bowl ban.
“Ray Anderson hired me here and brought me in and we’ve been attached at the hip,” Hurley said, “and Ray showed additional commitment to me and he believes in what I’ve been able to do.”
In his original contract, Hurley’s buyout started at $3 million and was reduced each year thereafter, with the coach owing nothing if he terminated the agreement in the final year of the deal. It also stipulated that his buyout would be cut in half were Anderson no longer athletics director.
The unsigned extension sets Hurley’s buyout at $2 million if he terminates the agreement before June 30, 2024, and at $1.5 million for the following year.
“The name of the game is jumping. You see it all the time,” Greenberg said. “Twenty-five percent of coaches each year leave their jobs and go to another school. The recipient universities, through what we call ‘accountability plans,’ pay those fees. And all the contracts have them, so he’s never going to pay that.”
Buyouts for college coaches are considered tax-deductible business expenses by the IRS, he said, which means the tab ultimately falls on the public.
Jason Wolf is a sports enterprise and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic. Contact him at jason.wolf@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @JasonWolf. Arizona Republic sports reporter Michelle Gardner contributed to this report.