By leading Arizona into the College World Series, fourth-year coach Chip Hale has earned $65,000 in performance bonuses and most likely some leverage in the college baseball job market.
Still on his original five-year contract that expires at the end of next season, Hale earned a base salary of $450,000 for the 2025 season plus $10,000 for winning the Big 12 Tournament, $10,000 for reaching the NCAA Tournament, $20,000 for reaching the Super Regionals and $25,000 for getting to the College World Series.
Arizona coach Chip Hale surveys the scene before facing Cal Poly in the NCAA Tournament’s Eugene Regional on June 1, 2025, at PK Park in Eugene, Oregon.
Hale could earn another $20,000 if Arizona reaches the CWS Final Series and another $75,000 if the Wildcats win the national championship. Hale’s contract, obtained by the Star via a public records request, says UA would pay Hale $100,000 if UA wins the NCAA title but also says the team performance bonuses would be capped at $160,000.
A former UA standout and seven-year major league player, Hale has taken the Wildcats to the NCAA Tournament in each of his four years as their coach. The only person in Pac-12 history to be named both Player of the Year (1987) and coach of the Year (2024), Hale spent 15 seasons as a coach or manager in major league baseball before UA hired him in 2021 to take over for Jay Johnson, who left for LSU after taking the Wildcats to the College World Series.
“I am thrilled and excited to have Chip lead our iconic baseball program,” then-UA athletic director Dave Heeke said upon Hale’s hiring. “Chip has long been a member of the Wildcat Family as a former student-athlete and has always remained close to our university and to our Tucson community. He has played and coached at the highest levels of the game and brings an unbridled passion and enthusiasm to his work.”
“Right time, right fit, right person,” said UA athletic director Dave Heeke, right, of hiring former UA player Chip Hale to coach the baseball team in July 2021.
Johnson was scheduled to earn $540,000 in 2022 and $550,000 in 2023, but instead signed a five-year deal at LSU worth $6.5 million. Upon replacing Johnson, Hale signed an offer sheet to be paid $435,000 plus $65,000 from Nike for his first season of 2022, and has received $5,000 raises every season since then, though his outside contracts with Nike are undisclosed on his current contract.
Hale is scheduled to receive another $5,000 salary escalator next season, for a base salary of $455,000 plus his undisclosed Nike payments, but he has not been extended past June 30, 2026.
UA athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois told the Star in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that college athletes and athletic department employees alike now look at their tenures as “one-year renewables.” She said she talked to Hale daily and that “when we have something to announce, I’ll let you know.”
