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Rob Mullens will be the eighth-highest paid athletics director in the Big 10 and within the top 20 highest paid in the country.
The University of Oregon Board of Trustees approved a new contract Monday for Rob Mullens, director of intercollegiate athletics, increasing his pay and extending his contract to 2033.
Effective July 1, Mullens will get a base salary raise of $57,710, increasing his annual base salary to $1.15 million. He also will receive a deferred compensation raise of $25,000, increasing his total deferred compensation to $100,000 a year, and a raise of $200,000 in his annual retention rate, boosting that to $500,000, in addition to other incentives. Under the new contract, he will be the eighth-highest paid athletics director of the 18 universities in the Big 10 and within the top 20 highest paid in the country.
The UO Board of Trustees must ratify contracts worth $5 million or more.
The board recently approved significant budget cuts to the university’s 2026 academic budget due to declines in out-of-state student enrollment, federal research funding cuts and insufficient state funding. But the UO athletics department is self-funded, so Mullens’ contract does not fall within the academic budget.
“Giving a raise or not giving a raise has no impact on the academic budget; it (the athletics department) operates separately, they need to generate their own revenue,” said Steve Holwerda, chair of the UO Board of Trustees. “So while this feels odd because of the optics of it, because of the challenges, the cuts that we are going to make, they are separate.”
Here are details about Mullens’ new contract:
- Base salary: $1,150,000 a year.
- Previously $1,092,290.
- Annual salary increase: $57,710 the first year, $50,000 in subsequent years.
- Deferred compensation: $100,000 a year.
- Previously $75,000.
- Annual retention: $500,000 a year for the next eight years.
- Previously $300,000 a year for the 2025-28 academic years and $500,000 for the 2029-30 year.
- Post-season football incentive: Additional $200,000 if the football team makes it to the College Football Playoff Championship.
- Previously $100,000 bonus if the football team played in a bowl game.
- NCAA basketball championship incentive: Additional $50,000 if both men’s and women’s teams participate in the tournament or $25,000 if one does.
- Previously a flat $25,000 if either or both teams participated in the tournament.
Additionally, the university added an opportunity for Mullens to leave his role as athletic director in 2029 or later and become a special adviser to the university president for up to four years. Mullens would earn $200,000 a year in this position, and it would be a part-time role.
“We set all salaries at the university for every single position based on the market,” Holwerda said. “It puts Rob basically in the middle of the pack of the Big Ten, and he’s definitely earned it.”
The UO Athletics Department does not receive any tuition money or state funds provided for university operating costs, according to UO’s website. The department is funded by ticket sales, conference distributions, gifts and other sources. Only the academic tutoring program for athletes is funded by the university, and the athletics department provides the university more than $3 million to pay for “administrative overhead charges.”
“Through Rob’s leadership, the UO has become a nationally leading athletics program,” UO president Karl Scholz said at Monday’s meeting. “Oregon is ranked one of the top brands in the country when it comes to affinity and name recognition, and athletic success draws more eyes to the institution, which gives us an opportunity to recruit new students and leverage our university and our reputation as a way to talk about our academic enterprise.”
