Finally, the games have begun in college football, and I’m not talking about the nasty games being played in conference realignment. I’m talking about the real thing.
As usual, the first few weeks bring us pastries. Yes, it is cupcake season in college football, and the pastries can be rather pricey. Here are some figures published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the University of Illinois and the university of Missouri are paying some of their non-conference opponents to play in their respective home stadiums.
ILLINOIS
2011 Arkansas State $850,000; South Dakota St. $400,000; Western Michigan $300,000
2012 Louisiana Tech $775,000; Charleston South. $410,000; Western Michigan $400,000
2013; Southern Illinois $350,000
MISSOURI
2011; Miami (Ohio) $500,000; Western Illinois $300,000
2012; Southern Illinois $325,000
2013; Murray State $350,000; Toledo $300,000
2014; South Dakota St. $350,000
Darren Rovell tweets some other amounts for other schools.
Tennessee paying Montana $500K, Nebraska paying Chattanooga $475K, Penn St. paying Indiana St. $450K.
Alabama paying Kent State $1.2 million, Ohio State paying Akron $850K, Purdue paying MTSU $850K.
That’s the highest payout RT @IraSchoffel Florida State is paying La.-Monroe $1.3M.
That may seem like a lot, and it is. But there is a lot of competition for these sorts of teams, and there’s not enough to go around. Plus the home fans of these schools are willing to pay a lot directly through ticket, concession, and souvenir sales. So we’d fully expect the schools that come in to take a likely beating to want a “taste of the gate.”
But what happens to the demand for cupcakes if conference realignment results in several super conferences?
One can always let the cupcakes into the conference and thus not have to pay them extra to show up for a game. Northwestern and Vanderbilt are the road team for a disproportionate number of homecoming games (just happy to be in the Big10/SEC respectively), and they don’t pay the big bucks to have a directional school show up for a non-conference game (imagine paying 500K to a school and losing). You should hear the way the SMU AD is begging to have the Big12 consider the Mustangs, a school with zero football success for decades.
Tom Rossley 1991–1996 15-48-3
Mike Cavan 1997–2001 22-34-0
Phil Bennett 2002–2007 18-52-0
June Jones 2008–2010 16-22-0
TOTAL (last 20 yrs) 71- 156-3, 0.309
I assume the only reason UT/OU/etc would accept SMU in would be for the chance to crush them every year and not have to write a check first.
Western Illinois got less money than Miami (Ohio) but was about as competitive as fourth-team backups in an intra-squad game. I predict Western Illinois will be getting offered a lot more money from BCS teams after this last weekend.