BCS Bowl Payouts

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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports

Dec. 21, 2004, 1:11AM



Follow the bouncing buck
Bowl payouts are meant to be shared by BCS conferences
By JEROME SOLOMON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Rose Bowl payout: $14.5 million per team.

Cotton Bowl payout: $3 million per team.

Holiday Bowl payout: $2 million per team.

Those numbers look pretty good on paper and would look even better in the bank accounts of Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, the Big 12 representatives in those games.

RESOURCES
Graphic: Bowl Revenue


But what looks like a tasty $19.5 million pie will be far from that by the time the BCS conferences, bowl committees and Baylor get their cuts.

(Oh, did you not know that Baylor, which hasn't been bowling in 10 years, gets as much money for not going to a bowl as each of the above three get from going?)

We're not talking crumbs here, but in the world of bowl finance, the take-home is far less than the payout.

Ignore the numbers above. Minus expenses, the Texas bowl teams from the Big 12 will clear less than $500,000 each for the trio of games.

In total, seven Big 12 teams are going to bowls that pay more than $37 million dollars, but each team will probably bank around $1.7 million.

"The bowl payout is paid to the conference, which turns around and allows participating teams an expense allowance. Then what's left is split equally among the schools," said Bobby Gleason, senior associate athletic director for business at Texas Tech.

The Texas group should bring home just under $6 million for their participation in the Rose, Cotton and Holiday bowls, and that total will be divided 12 ways — a share for each team in the conference. (The league also deducts a percentage for its operating expenses.) That's how Baylor gets paid despite staying home for the holidays.

In an odd way, the Bears, who haven't been to a bowl in the Big 12's nine years, may actually help the league's bowl revenues. The conference's lower-end bowl ties — Fort Worth and tonight's Champs Sports — often bring red to the account ledger.

It is a widely accepted truth among athletic directors that a trip to any bowl with a payout below $1 million is about leisure, not profit. The NCAA sets a $750,000 minimum payout. When and if Baylor does win enough games to qualify for one of the Big 12's eight bowl tie-ins, it is likely to be on the low end of the ledger.

"For the schools that participate in those games, it's a pretty much break-even as far as the revenues they receive from the conference," Gleason said. "There have been a few bowls we've lost money on over the years, but generally we break even or make a little money on them."

When there is talk that there are too many bowls, the general rebuttal is that schools and conferences can't turn down the money. With almost half of the bowls (13 of 28) this season paying $850,000 or less per team, it's not about the money.

For schools such as Texas, which has been to the Cotton and Holiday bowls three times each since the inception of the BCS in 1998, money isn't usually a concern. The Cotton and Holiday rank second and fifth in payout among non-BCS games.

"Our philosophy is we won't lose money on a bowl, but we'd have a hard time (if playing one of the lower-paying games)," said Ed Goble, associate athletic director for business at UT. "We operate under a charge that it's OK to spend the money you get through the conference, but don't lose money.

"We work pretty hard to break even. We've been really tight on the last two Holiday Bowls, but we haven't lost money."


Texas-sized traveling party
Texas' advancement to the Rose Bowl, where the Longhorns will face Michigan on Jan. 1 in their first BCS game, isn't the windfall one would think.

Because the Longhorns are the second team from the Big 12 in a BCS bowl (Oklahoma will play in the Orange Bowl), BCS rules stipulate that their share be only $4.5 million. The remainder of the Rose payout is split among the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10 and Southeastern Conference.

So with an expense allowance of about $1.7 million for its travel party of more than 700, UT could contribute just $2.8 million to the Big 12's fund from a game that could pay as much as $17 million. (And the $2.8 million would be even less if UT hadn't sold enough ticketsto match the bowl's requirement.)

A&M will be a decent donor to the conference kitty. According to the Big 12 office, the Aggies will be allotted about $1 million to get in and out of Dallas to play Tennessee, leaving more than $2 million for the conference to share.

Despite the Holiday Bowl's $2 million listing, Tech's trip to San Diego, a reward for a 7-4 season, won't bring nearly that much green to the books. The Red Raiders will probably spend $1.2 million for the week, bringing back about $800,000 for the league. For a typical regular-season road contest, Tech spends less than $75,000.

"The football team has a travel squad for road games, but the entire team travels to a bowl game," Gleason said. "You have a smaller contingent of travelers (in the regular season), and you're in on Friday, back on Saturday night. It's cheaper.

"Bowls have a predetermined number of days you must be there. You have more hotel rooms and more expenses in terms of meals and entertainment while you're there. It adds up."

Teams spend as much or more getting their bands to and from bowls as they do on their players.


They're with the band
UT's 411-member band party, which leaves for California on Dec. 28 and returns immediately after the Rose Bowl, will travel via three chartered planes and cost the university $407,000 for the trip.

Texas typically spends $125,000 on a regular-season road trip.

The Big 12 sets expense allowances for each bowl. Teams in BCS games get $1.48 million to spend, Cotton, Holiday and Alamo Bowl participants are allocated $925,000, and schools in the lower-tier bowls start with $650,000.


Peripheral benefits
An added mileage bump of $210 per mile can be significant — because of it, Texas will get more than a quarter of a million dollars to play with on the West Coast. The expense allowance is an individual school's to spend at will, and it keeps the difference.

Gleason said Tech's Champs Sports (then called the Tangerine) Bowl appearance in 2002 resulted in about a $50,000 pickup for the school.

But it's not about the money.

"It's always worth it to take each bowl trip," Gleason said. "There are a lot of advantages besides the financial issues involved — the exposure, the reward to the team for their effort throughout the year and the recruiting."

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