Salaries are booming as paydays grow quickly for women's college basketball coaches

Eye-popping salaries aren't just for college coaches in football and men's basketball. They're also quickly becoming a bigger deal for coaches in women's basketball.

As the sport has grown in stature, so has the pay for its coaches. It's no surprise some of the most well-known names on the sideline are making the most money, led by Connecticut's Geno Auriemma. But what may be surprising is how much some coaches are being paid and how quickly those numbers are rising.

For 15 years, USA TODAY Sports has published a survey detailing compensation of men’s basketball coaches at 65 or more Division I schools. Now, for the first time, USA TODAY Sports is analyzing women’s basketball coaches' pay in a comparable survey. The assessment focuses on all 65 programs in the Power Five and 22 outside those premier conferences that have made at least three of the past five NCAA Tournaments.

Auriemma, who has led Connecticut to 11 national championships, Dawn Staley of South Carolina and Kim Mulkey of LSU are among 11 women's coaches making more than $1 million annually. Staley has taken the Gamecocks to three Final Fours, winning the title in 2017. Mulkey, who spent 21 seasons at Baylor and won three titles, joined the Tigers last April. The remaining eight coaches making at least $1 million annually includes three coaches from the Big Ten, two from the Pac-12 and one each from the ACC, Big 12 and Southeastern Conference. That group does not include any coaches from private schools for which contract details were unavailable.

'TIP OF THE ICEBERG': Pay for women's coaches is skyrocketing. How high can it go?

The coaches' compensation from contract details is featured in a new, sortable database that allows you to compare not only how much your school pays its coach, but how that contract lines up with others from across the country. If you are a USA TODAY subscriber, you can tap into all of that information in this interactive database.

And make sure to return Friday afternoon for the release of the men's basketball coaches' salaries package, in which USA TODAY Sports explores how - and why - the SEC is starting to treat its men's basketball coaches like its football coaches.