UMass Amherst officially inked a contract extension with men’s basketball coach Derek Kellogg this week. The contract, including incentive pay, could be worth up to $800,000 a year.

The Umass Minutemen turned in their first winning season last year since Derek Kellogg began his tenure as head coach in 2008. Kellogg  was a point guard at UMass from 1991 to 1995 when the Minutemen grew in national prominence under coach John Calipari. Before he left UMass, Calipari reportedly signed a multi-million dollar contract with the school.

Dr. Sharianne Walker is chair of the Department of Sports Management at Western New England University. She says investing in a coach with strong local ties could help grow UMass’ basketball program, and could benefit the university as a whole. She says a prominent sports team can serve as a “front porch” of an institution.

“It’s where you see people learning about a particular institution, encouraging them to become more engaged definitely in terms of revenue opportunities, and creating better revenue opportunities, moving into new markets, gaining new fans. There’s really a strategic value to investing in athletics.”

But, Walker says, if the team does well, bringing in more outside revenue, state funding for the University’s athletic programs could decrease.

“And I also think in this day and age, it’s just like with public support for stadiums and arena finance, that people tend to believe that taxpayers should be paying for education, should not necessarily be paying for sports enterprises.”

Kellogg’s contract includes a $75,000 bonus if the team reaches the NCAA tournament, but also includes a $20,000 bonus if the team achieves an eighty percent graduation rate.