Missouri hired Dennis Gates as its head basketball coach officially on Tuesday. Gates and Director of Athletics Desiree Reed-Francois signed a Memorandum of Understanding last Friday outlining the details of his contract.
Gates will be guaranteed $16.5 million over six years of the deal, starting at $2.5 million in year one and increasing by $100,000 annually. He will be guaranteed $3 million in the final year of the deal, 2027-28.
Missouri was paying Cuonzo Martin an average of $3 million per year for seven years, fully guaranteed. The school parted ways with Martin two weeks ago following a 12-21 season. He coached Missouri for five years and will be paid the $6 million remaining on his seven-year deal.
Gates' contract includes a salary pool of $915,000 for his three assistant coaches. Martin's assistants--Chris Hollender, Cornell Mann and Marco Harris-Stevens--made a combined $680,000 last season. Martin's total staff pool was $1.1 million, but that included the salaries for the director of operations, the strength and conditioning coach and the video coordinator. The $915,000 in Gates' agreement is specifically for three assistants. Gates has not yet named any of his three full-time assistant coaches.
Total incentives in Gates contract could max out at $655,000 per year, meaning the maximum he could earn in year one is $3.15 million, increasing to $3.65 million in the final year of the contract.
Gates will also receive a country club membership, two courtesy cars or a $1200 monthly automobile stipend, ten tickets to each home basketball game and eight tickets to each Missouri home football game.
Should either party terminate the contract prior to its expiration, that party would owe the other the base and supplementary salary remaining on the contract. That means, should Gates be fired at the end of year one, Missouri would owe him $14 million. However, if Gates were to obtain another job, the school would owe him only the difference between the $14 million and the salary at his next position. Should he leave for another job, the amount owed to Missouri would be the remainder of the base and supplementary salary.
Gates was making $550,000 per year at Cleveland State. Mizzou owed CSU a buyout of $600,000 to hire Gates.
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