Texas AD Chris Del Conte set for contract extension through 2036

Texas AD Chris Del Conte is set to receive a six-year contract extension through 2036He’ll be making $4.25 million in guaranteed compensation by the end of the deal

The leader of one of the nation’s biggest, wealthiest and most powerful college athletic departments is on the verge of a lengthy new contract with a substantial pay bump.

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte is set to receive a six-year contract extension that runs through 2036, pending approval from the University of Texas System Board of Regents this week.

Under the terms of the new contract, Del Conte would receive a $300,000 bump in guaranteed compensation for the 2026 fiscal year, putting him up to $2.9 million. That figure would increase by $100,000 for each of the next three fiscal years. In the final year of his contract, Del Conte would earn $4.25 million.

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The performance incentives in his contract will remain unchanged from what they were under his previous deal through the 2030 fiscal year, which is when Del Conte’s current contract is set to end. From there, though, he could earn up to $475,000 in non-guaranteed compensation during the 2031 fiscal year and up to $600,000 in the 2036 fiscal year.

The 57-year-old Del Conte has been at Texas since December 2017, when he came over as athletic director after serving in the same role at then-Big 12 rival TCU. 

His tenure has been eventful. In 2024, the Longhorns moved from their longtime home in the Big 12 to the SEC. Del Conte has made several key coaching hires, as well. In 2021, he brought in football coach Steve Sarkisian, who has led Texas to the national semifinals in each of the past two seasons. Texas will enter the 2025 season atop the US LBM Coaches Poll as well. He has hired three men’s basketball coaches — Chris Beard, Rodney Terry and, most recently, Sean Miller — and in 2020, he hired Vic Schaeffer to lead the women’s basketball program.

Of the 12 head coaches Del Conte has hired, three have won national championships. The Longhorns have won 16 national championships since Del Conte’s arrival in Austin and in four of the past five years, they’ve won the Director’s Cup, which is given annually to the top overall athletic department nationally in college sports.