One of the oldest truisms in football is that coaches are hired to be fired. But even in an era of expanding postseasons, the hot seats in the sport are only getting hotter.

Just two weeks into the 2024 season and three in college football, a growing number of head coaches are finding their jobs publicly at risk, including Florida’s Billy Napier, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, the New York Giants’ Brian Daboll, and Denver’s Sean Payton. The two college teams have started the season a combined 1–5. The Giants, meanwhile, are 0–2 and finished Sunday’s 21–18 loss to the Commanders without a backup plan for injured kicker Graham Gano, while the Broncos are winless, too. 

The margin of error in college football is notoriously thin, but this year is the first to feature a 12-team playoff, tripling in size from the prior four-team format and giving championship hopes to a far larger group of teams beyond the utmost powers of the sport. The NFL, meanwhile, introduced a 14-team postseason in 2020, adding two extra teams to the playoffs compared to the previous structure. 

Those changes, in theory, should give any coach a larger window to save a season, even after a tough start. But in an instantaneous media culture, the push to replace underperforming coaches is arguably faster than ever. 

“We can’t live in the shoulda-woulda-coulda, if-then, all that,” Napier said Monday, adding there has been no discussion with university officials regarding his future and that there is “a path to a fourth year” for him in Gainesville. “Ultimately, we have an obligation to the players and the leadership at the university to do our best this week. That’s all we can control. Anything else is a waste of time.”

Pricey Decisions

Firing these coaches, particularly so early in the season, would, of course, come with serious expenses. Letting Norvell go now would put Florida State on the hook for $65 million, equating to 85% of his base salary and supplemental pay for the remainder of his current contract, which ends Dec. 31, 2031. Napier would be due about $26 million should he be let go, a sum that Gator boosters have reportedly pledged to fund. 

Daboll, meanwhile, is in the third year of a five-season contract worth an estimated $25 million over the full term, while Payton is in the second year of a five-year pact worth roughly $90 million. 

“We just have to keep looking at it, and that starts with me. I’m calling the plays,” Payton said after Denver’s 13–6 loss Sunday to Pittsburgh. The Broncos have scored just 26 points this season, third-worst in the NFL among teams that played two games, and a total countering Payton’s reputation as an offensive innovator.

LIV Golf will finish its third season this weekend in Dallas with the controversial tour’s $50 million team championship event.

And while questions remain about LIV’s future—from its next media-rights deal to its Saudi financial backers’ negotiations with the PGA Tour—the circuit has already released dates and locations for the first four tournaments of its 2025 schedule.

But before that happens, there’s some intriguing and potentially very expensive business to finish on the golf course.

The Rich Get Richer

Jon Rahm joined LIV in December after signing a contract worth more than $300 million. On Sunday, he earned another $18 million bonus after winning in Chicago and clinching the season-long individual points championship. Combined with his individual tournament winnings, Rahm’s first season on LIV has resulted in $34.73 million. His team, Legion XIII, has won several million more dollars, but that cash doesn’t go directly into golfers’ pockets, as it’s mostly used for franchise operations.

For this week’s team championship, though, the four players on each squad will take home 10% each of whatever they win, with the team taking 60%. Here are the top five team payouts up for grabs:

• First: $14 million
• Second: $8 million
• Third: $6 million
• Fourth: $4 million
• Fifth: $3.25 million

Entering the final, the top three teams get first-round byes in the team match-play tournament: Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC, Rahm’s Legion XIII, and Cam Smith’s Rippers GC.

Captain’s Choice

With the individual portion of the season over, LIV’s complicated promotion and relegation system will be put to the test. 

Only the top 24 finishers are guaranteed spots on their LIV teams next year. Places 25–48 are subject to being dropped or traded, and players 49th or below in the standings are supposed to be relegated. However, in that mandatory relegation zone is the two-time Masters champion and captain of the RangeGoats, Bubba Watson, who finished 53rd out of 57 players who earned points this season.

Team captains have equity in their franchises, and they can avoid relegation if LIV decides there is a “business reason” for doing so, according to Sports Illustrated. “We’ve already had realistic discussions about this and his teammates have confidence that he will return to form,” RangeGoats GM Randall Wells told SI.

Watson isn’t the only captain to struggle this season. Six other team bosses finished in the “open zone” that would leave them vulnerable: Kevin Na (33rd), Henrik Stenson (35th), Lee Westwood (36th), Ian Poulter (37th), Martin Kaymer (40th), and Phil Mickelson (47th). However, as team captains, they can simply decide to keep themselves on the four-man roster.

Patrick McEnroe is stepping down as the vice-captain of Team World at the Laver Cup after this weekend, but he wants tennis observers to know that the heavily criticized tournament is more than just a showcase.

“A lot of people have come up to me over the years and say, ‘It’s an exhibition,’ or ‘The players don’t take it seriously.’ That could not be farther from the truth. The players take a tremendous amount of pride,” McEnroe tells Front Office Sports.

The Laver Cup is tennis’s version of golf’s Ryder Cup, but tennis’s version pits six of the top European players against players from the rest of the world. The tournament has created some dream teams—including Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer playing together in the latter’s final professional match.

But the Laver Cup, which holds its seventh edition this weekend, is still building its legacy and credibility among fans and players, unlike the nearly 100-year existence of its golf counterpart. Top talent has chosen to skip the tournament throughout the years, including Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic this year. And just last week, Nadal decommitted from the tournament.

Schedule Changes

The biggest challenge for the Laver Cup has been how it fits into the overall tennis schedule, which McEnroe describes as “very crowded.” This year, the tournament follows the Davis Cup, another international team event, but one that has been around for more than a century. And the week before is the US Open, the final Grand Slam of the year.

McEnroe says the Laver Cup and Davis Cup should consider following the Ryder Cup, which is held every other year, which could help keep the tournaments from cannibalizing one another’s talent. However, he knows that’s a tall task given the bureaucracy in tennis.

“The more team events you can have that have a meaning to it … they help grow the game,” McEnroe says. “But that’s like a pie in the sky because to get the different organizing bodies together to agree on these things is what’s always proved to be challenging in professional tennis.”

The Davis Cup is established by the International Tennis Federation, while the Laver Cup is managed by a joint group including Federer’s management company Team8 Sports & Entertainment.

Pick Your Spot

To recruit players, the Laver Cup also provides a financial incentive for players—unlike in the Ryder Cup, where there is no purse. In 2022, the purse for Laver Cup participants was $2.2 million, and each player was guaranteed a six-figure payday.

But even with the financial incentive, McEnroe says it’s “unrealistic” to have all the top players in the world at the Laver Cup every year because he understands that some need to rest given the tennis calendar.

Several players have complained in recent years about the schedule, with the most high-profile voice being women’s World No. 1 Iga Świątek. But McEnroe, a former tennis pro, says there’s little chance that the schedule will change. He thinks the top players who have the financial flexibility simply need to pick their spots better.

“They’ve been talking about the schedule in tennis for like 50 years. Let me let you in on a little secret—nothing really significant is going to change,” McEnroe says. “You have to pick your spots when you’re Iga Świątek and you’re trying to win majors.”