Financial Madness Behind The College Bowl Schedule
By Brad Flory | brad@lifeinplaid.com
Published: Thursday, December 27, 2012,
JACKSON, MI Football is one of my great loves, but lately it is a love tainted by harsh questions.
Have American colleges gone crazy over all these bowl games? Or are they merely gullible when spending money? Its a tough call.
--CLIP--
The overload of games would be fine except colleges, which are usually public institutions supported by taxpayers, abandon financial sanity for the dubious honor of making the watered-down field. Universities invited to bowl games agree to buy thousands of tickets, guaranteeing income for promoters.
Colleges often not always, but often cannot sell their allotment of tickets because few people want them. They pay full price for empty seats.
Michigan State University reportedly (and predictably) sold about 3,000 of its 11,000 tickets to the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl on Saturday in Arizona.
Face value of those tickets is $25 to $125. If the average price is $50, MSU will lose about $400,000 by purchasing 8,000 empty seats.
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http://blog.mlive.com/bradosphere/2012/12/financial_insanity_props_up_ou.html#incart_river_default
wilt the stilt
(4,528 posts)I thought college was for education
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)around.
exboyfil
(17,917 posts)Thanks.
Our local university bundles up $3 to $5 million of general revenue to keep our sports programs going (at a cost of about $500/yr per student). I hate the practice.
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)TV rights covered most expenses. Silly me!
Angleae
(4,635 posts)Last year the minimum payout was $320,000 going up to $22,300,000
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/29/bowl-game-payouts-map-2011-2012-bcs_n_1174808.html