It's a great time to be an Eagle. Hoops notwithstanding,

[scotteagle]

I couldn't be more excited to be a Golden Eagle. I have a question for anyone in the know. How much do we earn from the conference for winning the west and going to Bowling Green? I suppose it includes TV money. I know there are benefits like recruiting, goodwill among our fans, the extra practices etc that are real helps to our program but how much in hard cash will we earn? Does the winner earn a larger cut? Is the wind fall mostly to the host team?
Also, is it a fait accompli that we are going to Dallas? I read where it pays 1.1 million, the New Orleans bowl pays 500k, Independence bowl pays 1.2 million, and the Miami Beach Bowl payout is not listed. (The Liberty bowl pays 1.4 million) . Of these, I like Dallas the best. Anyway, we usually lose money on Bowl payouts, but if we sell our ticket allotment and we get the full payout.minus what CUSA takes, will we actually earn a profit? If so, perhaps the athletic department will be able to pay the coaches more etc. Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer.

 

[ElectroEagle]

I don't think we get any money for playing in the Championship game. The conference fronts the travel costs for us, and it takes the ticket sales. I could be wrong, but I think that is how it is.

Does not matter how much the bowls pay out either. The NCAA, or the conference, one of the two, gives each bowl team like $200,000 to cover travel costs. Thats it. All the money from the bowl game is given to the conference. The conference splits it all evenly amongst every member institution.

Lets say CUSA filled all of its bowl games, and they payed a total of $4 million (they do not btw, closer to 3 mill). Split that 13 ways, and thats what every team gets. TV money from the season and the bowls also goes to the conference for the same purpose. Same thing for money from making the postseason in basketball and baseball. The money goes to the conference, the conference splits it between all the teams in the conference after paying the travel fees of the teams in the games.

Where we loose money on a bowl game is if the travel costs are more than the $200,000 given to us to cover it.

Also, in order to get the full bowl payout (say, 1.1 million from the dallas bowl), you have to sell all of the tickets given to the school to sell through its ticket office. Do not sell them all, and the payout gets lower.

CUSA is a secondary option to the Independence. It would be great for CUSA and USM if the Indy bowl is willing to take us. Its more money for us and the conference via its payout, and we will likely sell more tickets to that bowl against an SEC/ACC team than in the dallas bowl against a probable PAC12 team. But the Big 12 has to fail to fill all of their bowl slots before we get picked for that one I think. If Marshall ends up in Miami (rumors are they want marshall more than anyone else and do not have to take the conference champ), and then we can get into the Indy and then WKU to dallas, it will greatly increase CUSA's bowl payouts to each team than if we do not go to the Independence bowl.


Payouts per bowl that CUSA has ties too:
Miami = unknown (expected to be Marshall or WKU)
Bahamas = unknown (middle tn already accepted bid)
New Mexico = $456,250 (CUSA will not fill their slot in this one most likely)
Arizona = unknown (CUSA will not fill slot in this one most likely)
New Orleans = $500,000 (expected to be LA tech)
St. Petersburg = $537,500 (marshall if WKU gets miami)
Heart of Dallas = $1,100,000 (WKU or USM)

Independence Bowl - $1,200,000

The lowest payout I have ever heard of from a bowl was $300,000.

 

[scotteagle]

Thanks, oddly enough, it's possible the last 3 years of losing may have saved us money, if we got a portion of the bowl revenues anyway and had no travel expenses etc. I'll bet 2011, given the set of facts you laid before us, cost us dearly to go to Hawaii. Certainly we were lucky to break even. All those past years losing and MSU, Ole Miss, Vandy, and Kentucky got the same share as Alabama, Florida, and LSU....Wow.

 

[ElectroEagle]

Thanks, oddly enough, it's possible the last 3 years of losing may have saved us money, if we got a portion of the bowl revenues anyway and had no travel expenses etc. I'll bet 2011, given the set of facts you laid before us, cost us dearly to go to Hawaii. Certainly we were lucky to break even. All those past years losing and MSU, Ole Miss, Vandy, and Kentucky got the same share as Alabama, Florida, and LSU....Wow.

One of the Croom years at MSU, it was mentioned that the check they got from the SEC that year (their share of conference bowl money, tv revenues, ncaa tournaments in mens and womens basketball, etc etc) was actually 1-2 million higher than the schools actual athletic budget.

USM's athletic budget is in the 14-16 million a year range if I remember right. And that was a couple years ago. Imagine if we got another 15 million added to it. Thats essentially what happens for the bad teams in the big conferences. CUSA pays out each member school about 2 million a year by comparison. It would increase if we could get more teams into the NCAA tournament every year, and fill all our bowl slots and have a team make one of the access bowls.