The gator

[DTP]

Wait??? We’ve been talking about bowl payouts for a min on this board....now u’re saying teams actually lose $$?? The Cheez It Bowl paid out $6m last season. The Independence Bowl paid out $2.2m last yr when we played LA Tech.

I’m confused. I’ve literally heard what u posted.

Bowl Games Are Not Always Winners For Schools – CBS Miami

The 2014 Orange Bowl features a matchup of two storied football programs in Ohio State and Clemson. The game is expected to be one of the best of the bowl season, but it’s still possibly a loser for both teams due to the outgoing BCS system.

miami.cbslocal.com

It’s an older article but it tells how teams lose money because they can’t sell all their tickets. Bowl payouts go to conferences and then get divided up between the conference members. If your conference has a bunch of teams in the CFP and major New Years bowl games, you’ll do well because those games pay out enormously. If your conference has a bunch of middle and lower tier bowl games, You could end up losing money by playing in a bowl. For example, the Bahamas Bowl only pays out like $225 k per team. Imagine you’re some G5 program not in Florida. How much would it cost to travel to the Bahamas for your entire program and staff? You also have to buy all these tickets that you’re probably not going to sell because it might be hard to convince 10,000 UAB fans to travel to the Bahamas to see their 6 win team play a meaningless game.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

I think a lot of this is overstated.

First of all, the bowl payouts go to the ACC, and then revenue-shared out to all the schools. Thus, when the ACC has, say, 10 contracted-for bowl positions, the ACC gets the same amount of revenue every year. The REAL revenue "bump" is when we get 2 teams in the Final Four, in addition to our normal bowl contracted-for bowl spots.

Second, yes, the issue with required ticket purchases is problematic. On a lighter note, UM dodged that bullet this year. The e-mail that I got from Hurricane Sports said that I have to buy any Cheez-It Bowl tickets directly from Ticketmaster, NOT through the UM Athletic Department.

The article was from just before the Final Four was instituted, and mostly focused on traditional bowl games, which goes back to my earlier comments on another thread about bowl games being worthless. This isn't 1978 any longer. The UM alums are not sitting here, waiting for a bowl announcement, in order to book flights and hotel rooms for a late-December holiday.

Bowl games, as a big "drives holiday travel" phenomenon...they are done. Nobody really cares. It might be fun, but it's not a "I'm going to do this every year" type of thing. I'll go to the Cheez-It Bowl because it's in Orlando and I live in Orlando, but if it was a bowl game in Boise, you'd have to pay me to go.

 

[Rellyrell]

Bowl Games Are Not Always Winners For Schools – CBS Miami

The 2014 Orange Bowl features a matchup of two storied football programs in Ohio State and Clemson. The game is expected to be one of the best of the bowl season, but it’s still possibly a loser for both teams due to the outgoing BCS system.

miami.cbslocal.com

It’s an older article but it tells how teams lose money because they can’t sell all their tickets. Bowl payouts go to conferences and then get divided up between the conference members. If your conference has a bunch of teams in the CFP and major New Years bowl games, you’ll do well because those games pay out enormously. If your conference has a bunch of middle and lower tier bowl games, You could end up losing money by playing in a bowl. For example, the Bahamas Bowl only pays out like $225 k per team. Imagine you’re some G5 program not in Florida. How much would it cost to travel to the Bahamas for your entire program and staff? You also have to buy all these tickets that you’re probably not going to sell because it might be hard to convince 10,000 UAB fans to travel to the Bahamas to see their 6 win team play a meaningless game.

Got u; and that makes sense.

I guess I was coming at it from a P5 standpoint, but I can easily see how these lower bowls can actually cost more than the payout is. And w Covid, for some of these P5 teams & the lower tiered bowl games they are subject to, it may not make financial sense to play in.

 

[DTP]

I think a lot of this is overstated.

First of all, the bowl payouts go to the ACC, and then revenue-shared out to all the schools. Thus, when the ACC has, say, 10 contracted-for bowl positions, the ACC gets the same amount of revenue every year. The REAL revenue "bump" is when we get 2 teams in the Final Four, in addition to our normal bowl contracted-for bowl spots.

Second, yes, the issue with required ticket purchases is problematic. On a lighter note, UM dodged that bullet this year. The e-mail that I got from Hurricane Sports said that I have to buy any Cheez-It Bowl tickets directly from Ticketmaster, NOT through the UM Athletic Department.

The article was from just before the Final Four was instituted, and mostly focused on traditional bowl games, which goes back to my earlier comments on another thread about bowl games being worthless. This isn't 1978 any longer. The UM alums are not sitting here, waiting for a bowl announcement, in order to book flights and hotel rooms for a late-December holiday.

Bowl games, as a big "drives holiday travel" phenomenon...they are done. Nobody really cares. It might be fun, but it's not a "I'm going to do this every year" type of thing. I'll go to the Cheez-It Bowl because it's in Orlando and I live in Orlando, but if it was a bowl game in Boise, you'd have to pay me to go.

Agreed. I have friends that travel to out of state away games and there are certainly some die hards who are flying to Boise or El Paso or whatever god forsaken location Miami has played a crap tier bowl at but....most people ain’t doing that. Expecting the athletic department to be able to sell the entire allotment of tickets to a non New Year’s Day/ Playoff bowl game that’s out of state is next to impossible. I’d certainly make the trek to Orlando or Tampa or even the Bahamas to see a Miami bowl game (I had tickets to the Russell Athletic Bowl vs West Virginia in 2016 but my grandmother passed away and I had to sell them) but I’m not flying anywhere unless there’s some kind of National implications.

 

[mdpcane]

@fraggle be hitting that rock sometimes.