West Virginia cleared $144,750 from its December trip to the Champs Sports Bowl, but does that mean Mountaineer Nation is a better place?
No so, according to Mitch Vingle of the Charleston Gazette.
He writes: "Consider the situation. WVU's athletic department funded this expensive football team. It took that team to another city to make money for that city and ESPN; it entertained the nation; and it walked away with $144,750. There are incentive bonuses in coach Dana Holgorsen's new contract that pay more.
"You might remember that last September, WVU and BYU agreed to play a 2016 football game at Washington's FedEx Field. Each school will be paid $2.25 million.
"Yet WVU went to Orlando and played for a net of $144,750. It's the definition of ludicrous."
West Virginia and opponent North Carolina State were each responsible for selling 12,500 tickets. The Mountaineers sold only 4,700. That included 500 the school had to buy for the marching band.
"You read correctly. Not only do the schools' bands provide halftime entertainment, that have to pay to do so," Vingle writes.
Tickets went for $65 apiece, so West Virginia was on the hook for about $507,000 in ticket losses.
As Dan Wetzel writes in "Death To The BCS," experts "estimate a college football playoff could approach $750 million in annual revenue, more than $600 million ahead of the current system. The old bowls would survive mostly as is."
Instead, college teams, many of which are struggling to make ends meet, continue to agree to a system that costs them money.
Go figure.
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