The Washington Huskies suffered their worst loss of the season to a one-conference-win Penn State. This happened at the Alaska Airlines arena in front of the Husky fans. It was a frustrating night of watching Husky basketball, and immediately, many began to wonder if there was hope of getting out of Danny Sprinkle's contract.
It's only year two and yet, the product is barely better, if at all to last season. Sprinkle technically only needs two more wins to eclipse last season's mark. With a loss to Penn State, a bottom-of-the-barrel Big Ten school, they may not even get that. The problem is that Sprinkle is locked into a six-year contract with a big buyout, and the school is probably still absorbing the Mike Hopkins firing.
Danny Sprinkle would be owed millions if he were to be fired right now
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The initial contract is worth over $22 million for six years. Each year, he is paid a little bit more as the contract expires, but the buyout amount reduces. His first season, he was paid $3,200,000, and this season, he's making $3,300,000 next year, it will jump to $3,600,000, followed by $3,800,000, $4,000,000, and finally, in year six, it is set to be $4,200,000.
His buyout (if he were to leave on his own) goes down each year it looks like this:
- Year One: $6 Million
- Year Two: $5 Million
- Year Three: $4 Million
- Year Four: $3 Million
- Year Five: $1 Million
- Year Six: $0
The buyout is much worse if Washington fires him without cause. UW would owe him 85% of his contract, paid out in monthly installments.
With that being said, if Washington decided that the loss to Penn State was the nail in the coffin, he would be owed almost $16 million ($15.6). Even if they waited until the end of the season, it would barely go down.
If this doesn't remind you of why Washington was hanging onto Mike Hopkins, I don't know what does. They eventually ate about $3.1 million to see him packing. Now they are in a worse position with Sprinkle, and Washington fans better hope Sprinkle figures it out, because it's doubtful the University of Washington decides to swallow that big of an amount.