Mike Elko embarrasses himself with tone deaf comments just before his huge contract details were released
Mike Elko shared that he thinks college football should go back to amateurism right before his massive contract details came out
The Texas A&M Aggies college football program is exactly where it needs to be, with the right players and staff in place thanks to head coach. That said, coach Elko definitely embarrassed himself this week with his comments on the state of college athletics.
As many Aggies fans are well aware, Elko signed a new contract last fall worth $69 million for six years. However, the exact details of that contract were not released to the public — at least not until this week. And for Elko, the timing of that release could not have been worse. Just hours before, he shared some pretty controversial tone deaf words on player compensation.
Mike Elko’s contract details showcase his unbelievable deal with Texas A&M
Based on the details released on Elko’s contract, he is set to make a hefty $10.75 in base pay alone to kick things off. That increases each year by over a quarter million dollars, eventually landing on $12.25 million in his year six of the deal.
There’s a size-able buyout, but certainly not as ridiculous as some other recent contracts (like with the Jimbo Fisher deal). If the worst happens, and the Aggies choose to fire Elko (even this year) the program would owe him $12 million. That buyout decreases each year, working it’s way down to a single million by 2031.
Elko’s staff also has several incentives built in that help his entire crew. If A&M appears in the SEC Championship Game there’s a 4%-of-base-salary incentive. 8% if the Aggies win the game. 12% for each year that Texas A&M makes the playoff. 16% for the quarterfinals. 20% for the semifinals. 24% for making it to the national championship game. 30% for winning the national championship.
That means that if Elko leads the Aggies to the playoff in each of the six years, and wins a game or two, then he could make somewhere around $80 million dollars over the life of his contract. His staff, of course, would benefit greatly as well. Meanwhile the entire revenue share pool of money for the Aggies roster currently rests over just $20 million to spread across all of Elko’s players annually.
Mike Elko’s tone deaf comments on player compensation are a bad look
Coaches are already making a ton of money. Elko’s new contract, and the details within, now make him one of the highest paid in the nation. Unfortunately, just before the details that highlighted just how rich Elko was getting off this sport were released, he decided to make ignorant angry-old-man comments on players compensation in college football. The question wasn’t directly about players getting paid at all (in fact it was related to eligibility cases), but Elko decided to make it all about amateurism. Embarrassing.
“I think ‘slippery slope might be the understatement of a lifetime…It would be really cool if we got back to this being an amateur sport. College athletics being what college athletics are. The fewer people in society that have the ability to stick their hands up and cry they want something and they get it just because they want it, we’ll probably be better off.”
How in the world, in the year 2026, could a sitting SEC coach be so tone deaf as to suggest that it would ever make sense to go back to the amateurism model in college football? How did that model ever make sense at any point in the last two decades or more given all the money coming into the sport? And how did Elko think it was a good idea to say this when he himself is set to easily make more than $10 million a year for over the next half decade?
Elko will recover from his error just fine, but this was a bad look. Coaches around the country will use this quote against Elko in recruiting, but ultimately the Aggies will still likely continue to bring in some of the best talent in the nation every single year. Hopefully Elko learns from this though, and quits trashing players who simply want to be compensated fairly for putting their bodies on the line.
We’ll be back with more Texas A&M Aggies coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news.
