![\"Mathias](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mathias-esteves-de-macedo-e1774546625329.jpg\")
Mathias Esteves de Macedo is an undergraduate student majoring in Political Science at Florida State, where he serves as an Ambassador for the Institute for Governance and Civics.\u00a0<\/p>\nSince taking over as head coach of the West Broward Bobcats football team, Brian McCartney has improved the middling program to a powerhouse. This year, he led the team to their first-ever state championship in school history, and he was a finalist for 6A coach of the year in 2025.<\/p>\n
According to public records, McCartney earned just $52,644 last year. Meanwhile, the median household income in Broward County is $74,534, according to the Broward County Planning and Development Management Division.<\/p>\n
Examples like this have led many to call for changes to how Florida\u2019s high school athletic coaches are paid. Coaches in neighboring states earn considerably more. According to Sports Illustrated, Georgia, for instance, has 100 coaches being paid at least double, if not triple Brian McCartney\u2019s salary.<\/p>\n
Some policymakers have attempted to address this salary issue through Senate Bill 538 and House Bill 731. Presently, coaches are paid a supplement which is collectively bargained by the union and the school district. Coaches are not compensated based on their performance, and they are not able to negotiate their own salary with their district.<\/p>\n
The bills would reclassify coaches from instructional personnel to administrative personnel, removing them from the educator\u2019s collective bargaining agreement. This change would allow the district superintendent to negotiate coaches\u2019 salaries directly, enabling them to be paid more than the compensation outlined in Florida Statutes 1012.22, which governs public school personnel pay. The bills also allow school districts to provide additional payment to athletic coaches from \u201cvoluntary donations and revenues generated by authorized booster clubs or associations.\u201d<\/p>\n
I gathered the salaries of the high school football teams that made the final four in the 2025 football season, both in Florida and Georgia. Private schools were excluded from the data as their salary information is not publicly accessible. According to public records, the highest paid head coach out of the 21 Florida teams had a salary of $93,329. While that may seem significant, it is important to note that he\u2019s been teaching in the district for nearly 30 years. On the other hand, 19 out of the 25 Georgia coaches included had salaries above $100,000. The highest-paid Georgia coach on the list had a salary of $219,215. Although there was limited information, in Alabama, I found salaries for three coaches using the same methods. Their salaries were all above $100,000 margin, nearing $150,000.<\/p>\n
As noted above, coaches\u2019 compensation in Florida is a supplement that is set within a district\u2019s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and is unique to each district and sport. Across Florida\u2019s 64 school districts with publicly accessible CBAs, the average head football coaching supplement was $5,113 (including spring and fall football pay). The lowest head coach football supplement was in Broward County with an average stipend of $3,038. The highest was Charlotte County with an average stipend of $8,651 (including spring and fall football pay). The average teacher salary in Florida is roughly $55,000, meaning with the stipend most coaches might expect to earn around $60,000.<\/p>\n
Mathias Esteves de Macedo is an undergraduate student majoring in Political Science at Florida State, where he serves as an Ambassador for the Institute for Governance and Civics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coaches and those supporting the proposed legislative change say it is necessary to bring Florida\u2019s high school coach salaries up to a competitive market wage. The bill also brings to light interesting union bargaining dynamics. Sport coaches make up a small percentage of employees in a school district. The union\u2019s interest is to generate the largest salary increase for the highest number of individuals. In other words, it might not be in the union\u2019s interest to negotiate significant higher salary supplements for coaches.<\/p>\n
Whatever the\u00a0reason\u00a0is, the\u00a0data\u00a0is\u00a0clear.\u00a0Florida coaches earn\u00a0significantly\u00a0less,\u00a0on average, than\u00a0their counterparts in Georgia and Alabama. Senate Bill 538 and House Bill 731 represent\u00a0a potential pathway for increasing Florida coaches\u2019 salaries in the coming years. All in all, if Florida aims to be competitive in high school athletics, should compensation reflect what is seen in neighboring states?<\/p>\n
Mathias Esteves de Macedo is an undergraduate student majoring in Political Science at Florida State, where he serves as an Ambassador for the Institute for Governance and Civics.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since taking over as head coach of the West Broward Bobcats football team, Brian McCartney has improved the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[483,28,30,29,482,109,76410],"class_list":{"0":"post-209458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-commentary","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-social","14":"tag-social-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}