Pete Garcia signs extension, given extended role

Philippe Buteau and Igor Mello / Beacon Staff

The university will no longer have an Athletic Director, instead that position will be transformed into Executive Director of Sports and Entertainment.

With his contract set to expire in October, the athletic department’s head honcho has agreed to stay with the University for another five years with an expanded title and a $16,000 raise.

According to school public records, Pete Garcia inked his signature on April 1, signing a five-year extension through 2016, worth between $1.9 and 2.5 million, depending on incentives.

The deal will make him the highest paid athletic director out of the 12 institutions in the Sun Belt Conference. He is also the second highest paid member of the athletic department next to head football coach Mario Cristobal, who is currently making nearly $460,00 this year.

The deal begins at a base salary of $345,264, a nearly $16,000 raise of his previous base salary. Included in his deal, Garcia will receive an annual five percent increase and a retention bonus of 20 percent added to his base salary.

Garcia’s salary is derived from several sources.

His salary is coming from the University’s auxiliary funds, like the athletics fee, and contributions from the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, according to University Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Jessell in a statement issued by the Office of Media Relations.

“I am very happy and honored that the FIU Administration has the confidence in me to continue to build what we started almost five years ago. This is not about me but a reflection of all the hard work and dedication of the entire FIU Athletic Department,” Garcia said in a statement sent to Student Media.

Garcia will also be eligible to earn a string of performance based bonuses for football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball. Although there are at least 14 performance based bonuses, ranging from as low as three percent to as high as ten percent, their totals cannot exceed 15 percent.

Performance bonuses include a three percent bonus if the football, baseball and basketball teams each win a conference championship. A three percent bonus will also be tacked on if the football team reaches a non-BCS bowl game, five percent if they reach a BCS bowl game and ten percent if they win a National Championship.

As part of the performance bonus, Garcia can receive more incentives depending on the attendance for baseball, basketball and football in the upcoming season. Garcia can receive up to a ten percent of performance based bonus if the football team can reach more than 16,000 fans per game in attendance. According to the school’s attendance record, FIU has averaged 16,545 fans during five home games last season.

Based on the success of the football and baseball teams last season, if this contract had been in place last year, Garcia would have met the maximum total of performance based bonuses.

Alongside the retention bonus and the five percent annual increase, Garcia will also receive a $6,800 recruiting allowance as well as an $11,200 automobile allowance.

The new extension will also make him the Administrative Director of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, an event started by the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Biscayne Bay Campus in 1997.

Garcia will receive three percent of the net proceeds received by the University from the festival. Over the last two years, HTM has made over $2 Million in revenue.

The relationship between Athletic Department and the annual festival is nothing new to the university.

According to Mohammad Qureshi, assistant dean of HTM, the Athletic department has been involved with the financial aspect of the festival since 2006.

“HTM handles the students and the work they do at and for the festival while Athletics handles all of the financials,” Qureshi said.

The school is so busy with academics it does not have the capabilities to also run the financial side of the festival, according to Qureshi.

Garcia is also responsible for holding other events at any Athletic facilities, such as CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer matches on June 10 at FIU Stadium and Mixed Fighting Alliance bouts on April 16 at the U.S. Century Bank Arena.

Jorge Valens and Chris Towers contributed to this report.

 

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