photo by: Emma Crouch/Kansas Athletics

Kansas head coach Dan Fitzgerald during practice at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.

Updated 11:40 a.m. Sunday, June 15, 2025:

Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald’s new contract, announced by KU last week and obtained by the Journal-World via a Kansas Open Records Act request, provides Fitzgerald a salary increase and extends his employment through the end of the 2031 season, with the possibility for more years to be tacked on based on regular-season and postseason performance.

Fitzgerald, the reigning Big 12 coach of the year who led KU to its best season in recent program history, was previously set to earn $530,000 per season in 2025 and 2026 and $540,000 each year from 2027 on. His deal initially concluded in 2028 but had been automatically extended by one year to 2029 due to a contract provision, as a result of KU’s recent berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Now, the first full year of the coach’s new deal, which begins July 1, will pay him $675,000 in base salary as well as a $50,000 signing bonus. The contract increases his salary by an average of just under $30,000 each season, to the point that he will make $821,240 in its sixth and final year.

The actual value of each year is slightly higher because of the addition of retention payments, a new feature of the amended deal. Fitzgerald will earn a $75,000 retention bonus if he is still KU’s coach by Aug. 1, 2026, a number that increases to $100,000 for several years afterward.

While Fitzgerald’s contract officially concludes on June 30, 2031, he could theoretically continue to coach KU under the same deal for additional years after that if KU accomplishes a pair of milestones.

Fitzgerald’s contract is automatically extended by one year if KU wins a Big 12 regular-season title or Big 12 tournament championship. That is a one-time possibility. He can also earn another year at any point if the Jayhawks reach a super regional. The incentive years come with 4% increases to his base salary. Of note, if these milestones both occur in the same season, the contract is only extended by one year at a time.

Fitzgerald previously hit some of the incentives in his original contract. His new incentives include one month’s salary if KU wins a Big 12 regular-season title or a Big 12 tournament title, reaches the NCAA Tournament, reaches a super regional or reaches the Men’s College World Series. (These bonuses are cumulative, so each accomplishment would be worth another month.) Fitzgerald would also get two weeks’ salary for another Big 12 coach of the year honor and two months’ salary if KU wins the national championship.

The buyout structure for Fitzgerald’s contract, if he leaves KU, has been revised, although it is still dependent on the point in the contract at which he makes the prospective departure. Now, instead of a certain number of years’ worth of salary, the release payment is 50% of the cumulative remaining annual compensation. That payment is not required if Fitzgerald leaves during the sixth year of his deal or moves away from baseball altogether, and it is cut in half if Travis Goff is no longer in place as KU’s athletic director at the time of the prospective departure.

Absent from the contract released to the Journal-World, for the record, are specific details of the “increase in scholarships, plans to implement revenue sharing for student-athletes in the program, and the prioritization of facility investment” previously referenced in the KU Athletics press release announcing Fitzgerald’s new contract. There is a brief mention of the newly enacted College Sports Commission, the body overseeing new rules related to revenue sharing and name, image and likeness payments in the wake of the House v. NCAA settlement.

Fitzgerald recently concluded his third season at KU. He previously served as an assistant coach at LSU and Dallas Baptist and was the head coach at Des Moines Area Community College.

This story has been updated to reflect that Fitzgerald can earn the super regional extension more than one time.