It's actually not a terrible deal for the athletic directors. It gives them a free out of the buyout if they can plausibly claim they didn't know. You just risk a Petrino situation. But I think I don't think Auburn would fire a good coach because of that. They'd tell him to pay hush money to the girl and just take the PR hit for a little while.
But if you're a coach with a $30M contract, you're a 17ing idiot to keep your sidepiece on staff. Set up a side business and make your side piece the manager and your personal assistant. Claim you're doing it that way because you can't use a school employee on your personal business and it's easier to have a personal assistant that can keep track of both. If you're in a college town, it'd be easy as **** to go buy a half dozen rental properties. Then have your side piece manage those and advertise for rental management services.
Good points all.
$30M would provide many options that are much better than Auburn University employee "Personal Assistant to the Head Football Coach." That's just stupid.