Florida's Golden expected to coach with higher buyout if leaves NBA
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Prior to the 2025 extension, Golden earned $3.6 million annually after he'd originally signed a six-year, $18 million contract upon his hiring from San Francisco in 2022, at the time placing him 12th among 14 SEC coaches.
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CBS SportsFlorida coach Todd Golden will be one of the top five highest-paid coaches in college basketball during the 2026-27 season after agreeing to a new contract with the school on Friday, CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein reported. The six-year deal is worth $49.5 million and will pay Golden $7.5 million this upcoming season.
ESPNFlorida's Golden gets another extension and raise Todd Golden's third raise in as many years with the Florida Gators will make him the second-highest-paid basketball coach in the Southeastern Conference.
Bleacher ReportThat deal came about a year after Golden signed a two-year extension worth $4.1 million annually in March 2024, shortly after helping Florida qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three seasons.
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Golden, who led Florida to the 2025 national title and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season this past spring, is expected to coach a team with even higher preseason expectations this fall. The Gators are projected to open the season as the top-ranked team in the preseason AP Top 25 poll after returning Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu.
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Bleacher ReportGolden is heading into his fifth season with the Gators, which he led to a national title in 2025.
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UF will require a buyout of $3 million if Golden were to leave for the NBA, similar to his previous deal. The buyout drops to $2 million the following two seasons (2027-29) and $1 million in 2029-30. But if Golden leaves for another school, the cost would be much higher. He would have to pay UF $16 million if he were to leave after this season. The figure drops to $13 million in 2028, $5 million in 2029, $3 million in 2030, $2 million in 2031 and $1 million in the final year of the deal. But if Scott Stricklin is no longer UF's athletic director, the buyout immediately drops to $5 million in the first two years.
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CBS SportsIf Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin is not the athletic director at the school at any point in Golden's tenure with the Gators, his buyout is reduced to $5 million for the next two seasons, from $16 million and $13 million, respectively. If Stricklin were to depart the school, Golden's buyout to leave for the NBA would drop to $0 for the remainder of his new extension.
Bleacher ReportStricklin's departure from his current position at Florida would lead to next season's college and NBA buyouts for Golden dropping to $5 million and zero dollars, respectively, Hall reported.
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The only college basketball coaches set to make more than Golden this upcoming season are Kansas' Bill Self, UConn's Dan Hurley and Arkansas' John Calipari. North Carolina first-year coach Michael Malone, who made the jump from the NBA to the college level this offseason, is set to make the same amount ($7.5 million) as Golden during the 2026-27 campaign.
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Yahoo SportsBased on current salary figures from USA Today, Golden becomes the fourth-highest paid basketball coach in the nation, behind Kansas' Bill Self ($8.85 million), UConn's Dan Hurley ($8.025) and Calipari. North Carolina's Michael Malone also will earn $7.5 million in his first season with the Tar Heels.
2 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 Bleacher Report Golden signed a one-year extension earlier this month that stretched his deal through the 2031-32 season, Mark Long reported for the Associated Press.
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02 Yahoo Sports The deal adds a year to the six-year, $40.5 million deal he signed in May of 2025, a month after the Gators won the 2025 national championship. UF's 65-63 defeat of Houston made Golden the youngest coach to win a championship since Jimmy Valvano in 1983 at N.C. State.
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Sources (4)
- cbssports
- bleacherreport
- espn
- yahoosports