Vols make Vitello highest-paid NCAA baseball coach at $3M - ESPN

Tennessee's Tony Vitello, fresh off the Vols' first baseball national championship in school history, has received a new five-year deal that will pay him $3 million annually and make him the highest-paid coach in college baseball, the school announced Friday.

Vitello, since arriving in Knoxville in 2018, has transformed Tennessee into a baseball powerhouse. The Vols became the first SEC team in history to win 60 games this season on their way to capturing the national title with a 6-5 victory over Texas A&M in the deciding game.

Vitello has taken Tennessee to the Men's College World Series in three of the past four seasons and to the super regionals all four seasons. During that span, Tennessee ranks first nationally with 211 wins and a .773 winning percentage.

«Tony and his staff have developed the country's top baseball program, and we are excited to announce this long-term extension to keep Tony on Rocky Top,» Tennessee athletic director Danny White said in a release. «As an athletics department, we aim to lead the way in college sports, and Tony has created a baseball program that sets the standard across the entire sport.»

This new deal replaces one that Tennessee and Vitello agreed upon that went into effect on May 31, 2024, although that deal was never announced. Vitello was previously set to make $1.8 million annually. He received a $200,000 bonus for winning the MCWS, and part of the new deal includes an increase in the salary pool for his assistant coaches and support staff.

«With the new hires we made this summer, we wanted to take care in solidifying what we knew was inevitable, that being our athletic department and coaching staff wanting to be teammates for a long time,» Vitello said in a release. «Our