Turns Out Pittman Making Fallon, Kimmel Money

Late night post leads to realization of Arkansas Razorback coach's financial prominence

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Sep 12, 2023 12:32 PM EDT
Original:
Sep 12, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – For some reason the other night, legendary Arkansas sports writer Wally Hall went on a tangent against the two Jimmy's of late night television, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. He appears to have taken issue with their salaries.

It's something that might get skipped right past had a rabbit hole of thoughts not generated a Razorback related question. The first was this seems to insinuate these hosts just roll out onto the set, film an hour, then go home and that's the day. It ignores all the time in the writer's room, rehearsals, make-up, going through questions, numerous meetings, promos and evaluating ideas for various skits. There's a lot more that goes into than just what the public sees with the finished product.

Insinuating they work only five hours per week is like saying a college football coach like Arkansas' Sam Pittman only works 36-50 hours per year when the games are played. Everyone knows that's completely untrue. The actual resulting product is always the smallest portion of the timeline that goes into making it happen.

Then the $48,000 created a question. That number might be close in Arkansas, but what is the average income in California? The answer turns out to be $120,000. The $15 million before taxes is pretty close though. Fallon has a contract that reportedly pays around $16 million in New York City. As for Kimmel, he's reportedly at $15 million for his show in Los Angeles, so with it being a good round number, it was divided by the annual average salary in California.

It turns out Kimmel makes 125 times the average local salary. That led to the next logical question. What would be an equitable salary in Arkansas?

The reported average salary in Arkansas is $52,000, just a tad up from Hall's guesstimate. That number was multiplied by 125. The result shows the Arkansas equivalent of a Kimmel's network television show host salary is $6.5 million.

That is roughly Pittman's salary. If all the numbers in the public are correct, Pittman receives a $5 million base, will get a $1.2 million retention bonus, and gets another bonus of $250,000 that kicks in at seven wins. and goes up a quarter million for each additional win up to $750,000.

So, if Pittman were to pull off another nine-win season like he did two years ago, he should pull in at least $6.95 million and also trigger an extension on his contract. That's 133.67 times the average Arkansas salary. Kimmel would need over a $1 million raise to make the same money as Pittman in relation to local salary.

All three men are living their dream and there's nothing wrong with making what the market demands. There are a lot of people who make way less money than they do who depend on their success to keep a job and feed their families. It's why you see the Jimmy's doing a podcast with some of the other late night hosts so they can give the resulting money to their workers to help them survive during the strikes.

If Pittman or either Jimmy is unable to carry the load and generate success, a lot of people go down with them. In a lot of cases, it's people making way less than the state average. That's a lot of pressure on one set of shoulders.

While everyone only sees the 46 hours Pittman is on the field with his team assuming the Razorbacks make a bowl game, he's doing a lot to earn that money in the thousands of hours that make it possible. It's the same for the Jimmy's. They put in thousands of hours also. Probably not quite as much as Pittman, but there's little doubt he wouldn't trade having to stand in front of America every night hoping to be funny just like they wouldn't trade with him trying to win in the SEC.

Like them or not, these men are the American dream. All three started from humble beginnings that suggested the spot where they eventually landed shouldn't have been possible. They took risks and completed the journey.

We're fortunate to live in a country where these kinds of dreams are possible for those with the imagination, work ethic and willingness to take risks. It's what makes the United States a country so many people want to live in even with all its imperfections. Where even an old high school football coach can dream and in his 60s make late night network television kind of money.