Biff Poggi has been announced as the third head coach of the Charlotte 49ers football program to much fanfare. A legend in Baltimore, he has made a name for himself at Michigan but has his eyes set on even greater things in Charlotte. We will dive into Poggi’s salary, contract, and net worth to discover the price of returning the 49ers to winning ways.
Biff Poggi’s Salary and Contract in 2023
Following his appointment as the new Charlotte head coach, Poggi signed a five-year contract that aims to keep the highly decorated former high school coach with the 49ers through the 2027 college football season.
Under his new contract, Poggi’s salary will be $1 million, with no apparent incremental increases at this time. The new 49ers head coach will earn a base salary of $500,000, with the remaining $500,000 coming via Athletic Foundation funds.
Poggi arrives in Charlotte after spending two seasons with Michigan as the associate head coach, his second stint with the Wolverines following a year as an analyst in 2016. He’s been widely credited with creating the success of the program, catapulting them to being a major force in college football at a time when head coach Jim Harbaugh was on the hot seat.
For all his success in Ann Arbor, Poggi is perhaps most well known for his exploits at the high school level. The new Charlotte head coach instilled a culture of success at Gilman School, leading the football team to 13 state titles in 19 seasons.
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Following his transformative impact on his alma mater, Poggi then established the football program at Saint Frances Academy, where he mentored some of the players he’s worked with at the college level — and at least one who will take the field for him in Charlotte. For football success, culture is everything.
“My number one job is to love [the players],” Poggi enthused during his introductory press conference in Charlotte. “Their job is to love each other. That’s how we’re going to build our culture – through authentic relationships.”
“We are going to start telling each other the truth all the time. We’re going to build our culture on that. When you do that you have a team and a team is simply this, it is a series of authentic relationships where the members have a common goal.”
If his track record of bringing success extends to Charlotte and results in him being headhunted, Poggi’s contract has a descending value buyout clause that starts at $900,000 before the end of 2023 and finishes at $100,000 in his final year. On-field failure that leads to him being fired without cause would require the 49ers to pay his remaining base salary.
Poggi’s Net Worth
Poggi’s five-year contract and $1 million per year salary as the new Charlotte head coach give him a net worth of $5 million over the life of his contract with the 49ers. However, there’s more to net worth than salary alone.
His incentive-laden contract can give Poggi a significant salary boost for bringing success to the program both on and off the field. Let’s start with the list of athletic performance-related incentives, headlined by a potential $1 million windfall for bringing a College Football National Championship to Charlotte.
- If the 49ers finish in the AP or CFB Playoff Top 25: $75,000
- If the 49ers beat a Top 25 ranked Power Five Team: $25,000
- Appearing in the AAC Championship Game: $50,000
- Winning the AAC Championship Game: $50,000
- Any “At-Large” bowl game selection: $75,000
- New Year’s Six bowl appearance (non-CFB Playoff): $100,000
- CFB Playoff first-round appearance: $250,000
- CFB Playoff quarterfinal appearance: $375,000
- CFB Playoff semifinal appearance: $500,000
- College Football National Championship appearance: $750,000
- College Football National Championship win: $1,000,000
- AAC Coach of the Year: $25,000
- National Coach of the Year: $50,000
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It’s important to clarify that the bonuses in Poggi’s contract for the College Football Playoff are not cumulative. If he were to guide the 49ers to a national title, he’d be eligible for the $1 million bonus, not all of the above-listed bonuses combined.
In addition to the athletic incentives, Poggi will receive a financial reward based on the academic achievements of the student-athletes on his 49ers football team. For every year that the program’s Academic Progress Rate (APR) is 960 or more, the head coach will net a bonus of $25,000.
Unfortunately for Poggi, the university hasn’t met that marker in each of the last eight seasons. While his impact is expected to be great on the field for the 49ers, maybe it will extend to academic excellence too.
