Ryan Day
The numbers
$12.57M
$12,575,000
USA TODAY salary database, FY2025
$12.50M
$12,500,000
USA TODAY salary database, FY2025
$1.55M
$1,550,000
USA TODAY salary database, FY2025
$70.92M
$70,916,667
USA TODAY salary database, FY2025
These are school-reported contract terms, not realized compensation, and the buyout is a contractual maximum rather than money paid. Source ↗
The fine print
50 personal jet hours a year on top of 50 business hours — and empty deadhead legs count against the total.
“As additional compensation, Ohio State agrees to arrange for fifty (50) hours of such jet aircraft use by Coach for his personal use each contract year during the term of this Agreement. Each hour the aircraft is contracted for either business or personal use, including but not limited to, empty 'deadhead' legs of the flight, will count toward the fifty (50) hours per year (except Ohio State shall only count the 'deadhead' hours if Ohio State is charged for such 'deadhead' hours).”
Reported by media; primary document not held. This figure has not been read off a contract we hold.
Every clause here is quoted from the document it cites. A clause that cannot be re-checked against the scan is not published.
The flights
Contract grants 50 personal flight hours a year (reported) → Published reporting on Ohio State Buckeyes aircraft during this tenure:
A jet clause is eligibility; a tracked flight is evidence; the join is presented as contract-next-to-reporting, never as proof the coach was aboard.
How this page is sourced
Where a contract for this coach is in the corpus, the headline figures are read off that document at the page each card cites, and USA TODAY's figure runs alongside as a cross-check. Where no contract is held, the figures are school-reported contract terms from USA TODAY's coaches salary database for the most recent fiscal year on file. Neither is W-2 compensation, and neither is comparable to Form 990 totals for private schools.
Clause text is transcribed verbatim from the cited document at the cited page. Where a term is attributed to published reporting rather than a document we hold, the card says so explicitly.
Flight reports linked here are attributed to the program and the date, not to a passenger. Nothing on this page claims a coach exercised a clause or was aboard an aircraft.