But the highest-paid Rutgers athletics employee had no affiliation with football.
It was Steve Pikiell, the Scarlet Knights’ second-year men’s basketball coach, whose $2.13 million salary was approximately $5,000 more than Rutgers football coach Chris Ash’s 2017 total gross pay.
NJ Advance Media obtained salary information for Rutgers' entire 26,000-person workforce through an Open Public Records Act request through the university.
The salary database revealed Rutgers' nearly 250-person athletics staff earned a total of slightly more than $23 million in 2017 — which was a 2 percent increase from what Rutgers paid its athletics employees in 2016.