Tennessee’s Tony Vitello, rewarded with the largest contract in college baseball history, said his sights are set squarely on continuing the climb coming off the Volunteers’ historic 2024 national championship season.
“Now, we literally have facts that we can show recruits and everybody else that we’re as committed to baseball as you can possibly imagine,” Vitello told ESPN on Friday. “As a coaching staff, our administration and [athletic director] Danny White have given us peace of mind that there’s not anything better out there as far as support or investment. You throw in the combination that we live in one of the best college towns in the country, we’re the flagship school of the state and the passion of our fans, and it doesn’t get any better.”
Vitello’s new deal, announced earlier in the day by the university, will pay him $3 million annually and runs through the 2029 season. His annual salary would place him among Major League Baseball’s 10 highest-paid managers, according to MLB insiders.
The contract also includes an expanded salary pool for his assistants and support staff, replacing one that Tennessee and Vitello agreed upon that took effect May 31, although that deal was never announced. Vitello was previously set to make $1.8 million annually. He collected a $200,000 bonus for winning Tennessee’s first baseball national championship this season.
Since arriving in Knoxville prior to the 2018 season, Vitello has transformed Tennessee into a baseball powerhouse. The Volunteers became the first SEC team in history to win 60 games 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.
“It’s a never-ending process, especially when you include facilities and you include recruiting, but it’s also just trying to survive in the SEC, which everybody that’s been a part of it or even just watches it from the outside knows how challenging that is,” Vitello said. “So I don’t feel like we’re anywhere near done climbing in a bunch of different categories, even though we were able to have a successful postseason run this year.
“The cool thing about what people are talking about today is I feel like our staff has been rewarded for our loyalty. You’d be hard-pressed to find a member of our coaching staff that couldn’t have gone somewhere else for more money at some point. I think college baseball, and I say this humbly, but college baseball has gotten more attention and more of everything over the past few years.”
Per the terms of Vitello’s deal, he will owe the university $4 million if he leaves for another job before June 30, 2025. That buyout drops to $3 million in 2026, $2 million in 2027 and all the way down to $400,000 the last year of the contract in 2029. If Tennessee fires Vitello without cause during the term of the deal, he will be owed the full remainder of his contract.
If White is no longer Tennessee’s athletic director, Vitello’s buyout will be cut in half if he leaves for another job.
