Almost $9 Million for two neutral site games..big just get bigger

[MARSHALL77]

Hard to imagine this type of money for a regular season game being played at a neutral site.

http://theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/11437287-123/lsu

 

[MichiganHerd]

Michigan got 4.7 million in 2012 for being Alabama's sacrificial lamb.

 

[MARSHALL77]

For sure MichiganHerd - just an amazing number when you consider everything.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

Must be a lot of Mormons in Houston.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[herdville]

Expect to see a lot more of this as schools try to find ways to meet the bill for the "pay for play" rules. A far cry from what college sports is supposed to be about. Luck had to do this to pay WVU's bills for getting into the B12.

 

[ToesMU]

This is ridiculous, and ruinous to college football. Looks now like bowl season will be absorbed into the regular season.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[herdalicious]

I know the numbers look gaudy, but I'm not sure this is really that unusual. I don't know what LSU ticket prices are like, but years ago I did work in Columbus, and was told by an IMG rep with Ohio State's AD that the average gate (at the time) for an Ohio State football game is about $8 million.

In this case, LSU's money is all cream, since they don't have to staff the arena or pay the power bill, but its probably not exorbitantly more than they make in profit from a home date. The losers here are their fans, who now have to travel to a home game and pay what is certain to be inflated ticket prices to see one of these "regular season bowl games" at a neutral site, against two teams that would be less enticing than anyone on their conference schedule, aside from maybe Kentucky or Vanderbilt.

 

[Herdstruck]

I was reading some of their fans saying that LSU athletics makes so much money that they can actually donate to the university itself for academics.

Crazy.

 

[HerdZO]

tOSU makes about $7.15m per home game. if you are a Bama, LSU, tOSU- what you do now is play 7 home games and at least 1 "neutral game". These "neutral" games are nothing more that regular season bowl games and I'm surprised it took them this long to figure it out.

Last year, tOSU played 7 home games ($49m+), as well as a "neutral site" game against Navy in MD. The Alabamas, the LSUs, Notre Dames- for the most part, they have stopped playing non-conference road games. Alabama has played 2 non-conference road games since 2011.

This post was edited on 1/28 8:06 AM by HerdZO