Bowl System Doesn't Pay

[bluehenbillk]

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/colleges/20090304_Sports_in_Brief__Rutgers__bowl_win_proves _expensive.html

I guess that unless you're in a BCS game you can expect to make no money if not lose cash.

Rutgers lost money on their bowl game & their fans were so psyched they failed to sell even half their ticket allotment. Someone remind me again, isn't one of the playoff opponent arguments that a playoff would cheapen the other bowl games? Huh?

[dgreco]

The coaches shouldn't of received that much for the papajon's bowl. Maybe if it was a major bowl, but almost 300,000 for that. How else did they spend the 1.2 million? After coaches, tickets, and sending people down they lost that much?

[Appinator]

http://www.appfan.com/blog/?p=2273#comments

Good blurb on Appfan.com about the actual financial losses that some schools endure to participate in bowl games. Here is the link to the mentioned article:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/audit_rutgers_lost_more_than_1.html

Apparently, Rutgers lost around $130K on it's trip to the papajohns.com Bowl, not due specifically to the athletic program, but because of mandates to buy ticket allotments and because they had to cover their own expenses to send the band and other university officials. I would not be surprised at all if this was the case for many "mid-major" schools in the FBS, which are already struggling to break even.

I put this in the FCS forum because I know that there are a number of schools who hope (or at least think) that their administration will make a push for the FBS world after 2011. Some of the reasoning behind such a jump is that football will provide so much extra funding, that it will compensate for the cost of the extra scholarships and salaries required by title 9 (among other things).

Does news like this sober anyone up to the fact that FCS might be the place where their school is better off?

[FCS Go!]

[url]....Does news like this sober anyone up to the fact that FCS might be the place where their school is better off?

Of course not.

[813Jag]

The coaches shouldn't of received that much for the papajon's bowl. Maybe if it was a major bowl, but almost 300,000 for that. How else did they spend the 1.2 million? After coaches, tickets, and sending people down they lost that much?
This is their breakdown:

$282,610 to send 205 members of the Rutgers football team and staff to Birmingham for six days
$165,799 for 187 members of the band and cheerleading squads, who went for three days
$28,950 for 21 members of the faculty, administration and athletics department
Food and lodging expenses totaled $263,334.
$268,365 in performance bonuses and other compensation for the head coach Greg Schiano and his staff.

They were obligated as well to buy 10,000 tickets to the game and sold less than half of them, absorbing $214,000 in tickets.

I'm more interested in seeing Maryland's breakdown from the Humanitarian Bowl.

[UNHWildCats]

the papajohns bowl has a payput of only $300,000 in 2008. IT was the lowest payout of all bowl games.

Only 3 games had payuouts under $500,000

http://www.football-bowl.com/2008-bowl-games.html

[Syntax Error]

We have discussed this again and again here on AGS, that the FBS is not a road to more money, fame, and fortune. It is in fact a trail of bankrupting wishes and crystal ball dreams if your school is not a megaBC$ sweetheart. FCS was built on cost containment, a wise financial outlook. That we are the highest NCAA football championship rung is just icing on the cake. xthumbsupx

[UNHWildCats]

the papa johns bowl is one of three to have a payout less then $500,000 ($300,000)

[achrist70]

I think that it was reported that Iowa made $48 dollars on its trip to the Outback bowl.

[UNHWildCats]

I think that it was reported that Iowa made $48 dollars on its trip to the Outback bowl.
kinda sad that they could only make $48 from a $3.2 million payout... Either the number you posted is incorrect or they used $1,000 bills to light their victory cigars.

[Husky Alum]

I have friends in the Athletic Department at Boston College and they told me that if they don't go to a bowl game paying $1.0 million per team or more, they lose money on THEIR bowl game since their alumni don't travel well and they have to buy the excess tickets.

[jmufan999]

We have discussed this again and again here on AGS, that the FBS is not a road to more money, fame, and fortune. It is in fact a trail of bankrupting wishes and crystal ball dreams if your school is not a megaBC$ sweetheart. FCS was built on cost containment, a wise financial outlook. That we are the highest NCAA football championship rung is just icing on the cake. xthumbsupx

let's not pretend like there AREN'T advantages though:

-how often was your team discussed on ESPN? i'm not talking about the few nationally televised games, i'm talking about shows where they discuss topics and debate back and forth. i didn't see PTI talking about ways to improve OUR playoff. they don't even talk about how OUR playoff could be improved (we all know there are some flaws).
-how often was someone talking about FCS at the water cooler?
-if your team has won a national title, and you tell your friends, and they say, "no, they didn't win the national title, ______________ (insert FBS champ for that year) did."................. that's annoying. if your team hasn't won a title, then you don't know how annoying this is to hear over and over and over.

media exposure would be amazing but will never happen on the same level as FBS, unfortunately. if there was, sites like this wouldn't be as popular either, since you could get your "FCS fix" on Mike And Mike or something.

[89Hen]

It is in fact a trail of bankrupting wishes and crystal ball dreams if your school is not a megaBC$ sweetheart. FCS was built on cost containment, a wise financial outlook. That we are the highest NCAA football championship rung is just icing on the cake. xthumbsupx
Wasn't there a good piece on Troy State a couple years ago on how they were struggling financiall since making the leap?

[henfan]

let's not pretend like there AREN'T advantages though:
...if your team has won a national title, and you tell your friends, and they say, "no, they didn't win the national title, ______________ (insert FBS champ for that year) did."................. that's annoying. if your team hasn't won a title, then you don't know how annoying this is to hear over and over and over.

I'd agree that there are advantages to participating at the FBS level and the decision to remain at that level has to be deemed valuable by the individual institutions, regardless of the apparent negative financial repercussions. Despite the losing bowl scenarios, FBS schools aren't in a mad rush to reclassify to the D-I 'cost containment' level.

But, to you final point, Directional Michigan and Mountain West State have zero shot realisticly of ever winning a BCS national championship. Who cares if Joe Public knows if JMU won the D-I National Championship or even what that is? You and the millions who follow FCS FB know it and that's all that should matter.xnodx

[89Hen]

I'd agree that there are advantages to participating at the FBS level and the decision to remain at that level has to be deemed valuable by the individual institutions, regardless of the apparent negative financial repercussions. Despite the losing bowl scenarios, FBS schools aren't in a mad rush to reclassify to the D-I 'cost containment' level.
Who/when was the last team to move from I-A to I-AA? The Ivy's? xconfusedx xeyebrowx

[carney2]

This is their breakdown:

$282,610 to send 205 members of the Rutgers football team and staff to Birmingham for six days
$165,799 for 187 members of the band and cheerleading squads, who went for three days
$28,950 for 21 members of the faculty, administration and athletics department
Food and lodging expenses totaled $263,334.
$268,365 in performance bonuses and other compensation for the head coach Greg Schiano and his staff.

They were obligated as well to buy 10,000 tickets to the game and sold less than half of them, absorbing $214,000 in tickets.

I'm more interested in seeing Maryland's breakdown from the Humanitarian Bowl.

That's $1,223,058 in expenditures to attend a bowl that someone else reported here only has a payout of $300,000. Huh!?? Then we have the article that started all of this which stated that the University collected $1.2 million and lost something over $184,000 on the deal. That would mean that we are somehow "missing" expenditures of about $160,000 in all of this swirl of financial info. Does anyone have some real numbers to deal with? Are there other factors such as a bowl tie-in with the Big East which gave Rutgers no choice but to attend? Would the Big East, then, be kicking in some bucks? How about Rutgers' take from other bowls played by Big East teams? A single member's cut from Cincinnati's humongous Orange Bowl payout ($17 million+) would have put a dent in this. Might that not put the entire bowl season scenario into the black?

There is so much we don't know here.

[UNHWildCats]

That's $1,223,058 in expenditures to attend a bowl that someone else reported here only has a payout of $300,000. Huh!?? Then we have the article that started all of this which stated that the University collected $1.2 million and lost something over $184,000 on the deal. That would mean that we are somehow "missing" expenditures of about $160,000 in all of this swirl of financial info. Does anyone have some real numbers to deal with? Are there other factors such as a bowl tie-in with the Big East which gave Rutgers no choice but to attend. Would the Big East, then, be kicking in some bucks? How about Rutgers' take from other bowls played by Big East teams. Might that not put the entire bowl season scenario into the black?
The big east schools split half of the BCS bid payout $17 m payout - $8.5 m for the school attending, the other $8.5 is split between the other conference schools.

So Rutgers got $1.2 million or so from Cincinatti's Orange Bowl appearance.

[mebisonII]

kinda sad that they could only make $48 from a $3.2 million payout... Either the number you posted is incorrect or they used $1,000 bills to light their victory cigars.

No, that's about right. The article from the local paper is archived now so you can't see it without paying, but they said they pretty much broke even and that was all they hoped to do. Many other B10 schools lost money.

[henfan]

Who/when was the last team to move from I-A to I-AA? The Ivy's? xconfusedx xeyebrowx

There were some forced and unforced migrations back in the early years of D-I subdivision history (1982), including the Ivy League, Southland Conference, etc. Don't know of any FBS/I-A programs since that time who have voluntarily moved to the FCS/I-AA level, unless you count Villanova's FB startup in the mid-'80s.

[Appinator]

let's not pretend like there AREN'T advantages though:

-how often was your team discussed on ESPN? i'm not talking about the few nationally televised games, i'm talking about shows where they discuss topics and debate back and forth. i didn't see PTI talking about ways to improve OUR playoff. they don't even talk about how OUR playoff could be improved (we all know there are some flaws).
-how often was someone talking about FCS at the water cooler?
-if your team has won a national title, and you tell your friends, and they say, "no, they didn't win the national title, ______________ (insert FBS champ for that year) did."................. that's annoying. if your team hasn't won a title, then you don't know how annoying this is to hear over and over and over.

media exposure would be amazing but will never happen on the same level as FBS, unfortunately. if there was, sites like this wouldn't be as popular either, since you could get your "FCS fix" on Mike And Mike or something.

I think this is a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" kind of argument. With this reasoning, you are stating "you cannot have large scale success and media attention without being a part of the FBS". While the other side of the coin would be: "if you have success, the media and FBS will take notice"

Haven't we seen this over and over? Montana State beat a bad Colorado team and ESPN pooped it's pants! It was the talk of national radio for the entire week (featured on all ESPN major shows, "first and ten", Jim Rome, ect.). It is an embarrassment of wealth that App has accumulated in media coverage since the Michigan win. I think Armanti alone has been mentioned or featured on PTI 3 or 4 times.

The point is, people get caught up in the everyday conversations were some guy who is a Virgina Tech or NC State fan (and was about 1000 points on the SAT away from getting admitted there) says that we are JV.

In my opinion, our recognition of success from FBS teams comes when it is near impossible to schedule one. You hear more JV talk, and how "it's not worth it", from their schools papers. But all I hear is "that school has got a SQUAD, and we would be idiots to put our prized 6-6 record on the line by playing them".

[Ivytalk]

the papajohns bowl has a payput of only $300,000 in 2008. IT was the lowest payout of all bowl games.

Only 3 games had payuouts under $500,000

http://www.football-bowl.com/2008-bowl-games.html

Embarrassing! I guess too many papajohns customers decided to "hold the pepperoni"...xrolleyesx:p

[rudy1648]

let's not pretend like there AREN'T advantages though:

-how often was your team discussed on ESPN? i'm not talking about the few nationally televised games, i'm talking about shows where they discuss topics and debate back and forth. i didn't see PTI talking about ways to improve OUR playoff. they don't even talk about how OUR playoff could be improved (we all know there are some flaws).
-how often was someone talking about FCS at the water cooler?
-if your team has won a national title, and you tell your friends, and they say, "no, they didn't win the national title, ______________ (insert FBS champ for that year) did."................. that's annoying. if your team hasn't won a title, then you don't know how annoying this is to hear over and over and over.

media exposure would be amazing but will never happen on the same level as FBS, unfortunately. if there was, sites like this wouldn't be as popular either, since you could get your "FCS fix" on Mike And Mike or something.

How often was Papa John's Toilet Bowl mentioned around a water cooler where you work? Can you name any team that played in one of those completely meaningless bowls? When there are 34 bowl games played in like 3 weeks, and any team who has an average record makes a bowl,,,,there is very little interest beyond the school alumni. If ESPN was not covereing and hyping all these Trivia Bowl games continuously ,,,,there would be just about the same amount of interest as there is in FCS championship games.

[Ivytalk]

My all-time favorite remains the Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl, Shreveport, LA.:p

[Lehigh Football Nation]

This is real dangerous waters AGSers (and the papers reporting the story) are treading into here, but they don't know it yet.

Is football an experience that is fun for the fans, alumni and faculty, or is it a money-making enterprise? If it's a money-making enterprise, then you might as well fold up 2/3rds of the FBS football school and just about all of the FCS football programs.

The articles talk about spending $200,000 so that the cheerleaders and band can attend the bowl game is moral hazard:


The costs of the Papajohns.com Bowl included $282,610 to send 205 members of the Rutgers football team and staff to Birmingham for six days; $165,799 for 187 members of the band and cheerleading squads, who went for three days, and $28,950 for 21 members of the faculty, administration and athletics department. Food and lodging expenses totaled $263,334.

Oh really? Perhaps the writers of the article would like to tell them to stay at home instead to save money for the good of the university. If the experience of going to the bowl game is good education for the players, why is the experience of the band or cheerleaders any less so? You'll note, too, that the lion's share of the money mentioned here is all getting spent mostly for the benefit of the athletes and students that supported the team the most during the year.

In their zeal to make their argument, they're treating an athletic department like a business, as if it's sole purpose in life is to make money. If that's the end game of the athletics department, then sure, f*** the band and the cheerleaders. And why stop there? F*** t the support staff that worked hard to make the success happen on the field. After all, it's not about people, it's about profit, right? Sending the administrative assistant to the bowl game (OR the playoff game, OR the national championship game) is bad for the bottom line. So f*** them.

FCS, in my view, has a much, much more rewarding end of their season than FBS for everyone involved for a lot less expenditure. But let's not pretend that the same things we call benefits and an educational mission at the FCS level are not present at all at the FBS level. There is a good point to be made here - if you're going into FBS for the money and bowl payouts, it's probably not a good idea. But when you do so in the parameters they are mentioning (football loses money since it is primarily a business, the band and cheerleaders should stay home since it would affect Rutgers' bottom line), it's a wrong argument.

[89Hen]

FCS, in my view, has a much, much more rewarding end of their season than FBS for everyone involved for a lot less expenditure.
Except that half the post-season teams in I-A win their final game while 15/16ths in I-AA lose. xsmiley_wix

[OLDMAIN80]

Does anyone have a link to or the numbers on the $ paid to/by each school in the FCS playoff last year. Reading the FBS numbers made me curious.

[achrist70]

kinda sad that they could only make $48 from a $3.2 million payout... Either the number you posted is incorrect or they used $1,000 bills to light their victory cigars.

They don't get the 3.2 that goes to the Big Ten, then it is divided. And teams take everyone and their brother to these bowls, especially when they are in florida.

[Jackman]

There were some forced and unforced migrations back in the early years of D-I subdivision history (1982), including the Ivy League, Southland Conference, etc. Don't know of any FBS/I-A programs since that time who have voluntarily moved to the FCS/I-AA level, unless you count Villanova's FB startup in the mid-'80s.
I believe Holy Cross toughed it out briefly before voluntarily moving to FCS. I think they're the only ones who weren't forced into it.

[813Jag]

They don't get the 3.2 that goes to the Big Ten, then it is divided. And teams take everyone and their brother to these bowls, especially when they are in florida.
exactly, every guy on the team makes that trip. Even the redshirts.

[Syntax Error]

Does anyone have a link to or the numbers on the $ paid to/by each school in the FCS playoff last year. Reading the FBS numbers made me curious.
That is all real sketchy info to get since it comes from both the schools and the NCAA. You can look at reported attendance in the stats, but the travel allowance money, additional money spent by the schools, bid amounts, etc.... requires a real good detective.

[ur2k]

This is real dangerous waters AGSers (and the papers reporting the story) are treading into here, but they don't know it yet.

Is football an experience that is fun for the fans, alumni and faculty, or is it a money-making enterprise? If it's a money-making enterprise, then you might as well fold up 2/3rds of the FBS football school and just about all of the FCS football programs.

The articles talk about spending $200,000 so that the cheerleaders and band can attend the bowl game is moral hazard:



Oh really? Perhaps the writers of the article would like to tell them to stay at home instead to save money for the good of the university. If the experience of going to the bowl game is good education for the players, why is the experience of the band or cheerleaders any less so? You'll note, too, that the lion's share of the money mentioned here is all getting spent mostly for the benefit of the athletes and students that supported the team the most during the year.

In their zeal to make their argument, they're treating an athletic department like a business, as if it's sole purpose in life is to make money. If that's the end game of the athletics department, then sure, f*** the band and the cheerleaders. And why stop there? F*** t the support staff that worked hard to make the success happen on the field. After all, it's not about people, it's about profit, right? Sending the administrative assistant to the bowl game (OR the playoff game, OR the national championship game) is bad for the bottom line. So f*** them.

FCS, in my view, has a much, much more rewarding end of their season than FBS for everyone involved for a lot less expenditure. But let's not pretend that the same things we call benefits and an educational mission at the FCS level are not present at all at the FBS level. There is a good point to be made here - if you're going into FBS for the money and bowl payouts, it's probably not a good idea. But when you do so in the parameters they are mentioning (football loses money since it is primarily a business, the band and cheerleaders should stay home since it would affect Rutgers' bottom line), it's a wrong argument.

I think the difference is most people at the FCS level know they will be operating in the red. I get the impression that people think when/if a school moves up to the FBS - they will make money hand over fist and I don't believe that is the case.

I love the fact that we settle our championship on the field and don't have to play in some crap bowl to end the season.

[achrist70]

exactly, every guy on the team makes that trip. Even the redshirts.

And the band, families of coaches and players, administrators, just about anyone they can take.