Lately I keep seeing story after story along these lines: Kentucky posted a $250-thousand+ plus deficit from its bowl game; Auburn spent more than $600 thousand than it took in on its bowl game.
But I never see anyone explain why that matters.
Look, both schools make far more off of their football programs than either spent this postseason, so it’s not like they don’t have the scratch to cover the shortfall. If the schools aren’t making the taxpayers fork over money for the expenses and there’s no fraud involved, I’m not getting the point to the attention. Especially in Auburn’s case – it’s not as if a school plays for a national title every day. Let ’em live a little.
Get The Picture 
I’m with you. The reason it’s becoming an issue is because people see the cost and compare it with estimated revenue from a playoff.
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Something to keep in mind is that these deficits that schools run are based on a budget of their share of the payout of their specific bowl game.
Auburn “lost” $600,000 if you only look at their cut of the BCSNCG payout. Add in their share of the rest of the conference’s bowl payouts, and they turned a profit off of the post season in general. Every SEC bowl team does.
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Its very simple. Idiots love to get mad about other people either getting paid a bunch of money or spending a bunch of money. They will click on anything that gives the impression that that has happened improperly, and they really don’t care about the full explanation. They just want to get mad. Its good for site traffic.
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Well, I mean, in Auburn’s case, the bowl games are really only set up to cover travel costs, etc. for a team to come play. They aren’t really in the business of helping schools cover player salaries.
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Then there was that hefty fee for Cecil to stay away from the game which they’re trying to get back now. All that remains of that cash is a few cases of Annie Green Springs Apricot splash.
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“It’s a work week for me.” Yeah, sure.
🙂
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All these “Team X Lost Money on the Bowl Game” stories all read the same too me. The team basically broke even on the game expenses and then “lost” money on the tickets the school bought from the bowl.
Also, I really hated the story that was trying to talk about how Auburn didnt sell their allotment of tickets when really Im sure the school could have sold many more than the ~15K they sold to their fans. The ~2,000 they didnt “sell” seems like tickets they never actually planned to sell to their fans.
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One of the figures I thought was odd was the 473 team, coaches and staff.
God Damn thats a lot of coaches and support staff. Thats like one equipment handler, one physical therapist and one personal secretary for each player.
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Why cant they just be honest and say they hired a bunch of Lacey Earps types and flew Cecil Newton’s entire Church of the Almighty Dollar Congregation out to the desert? Hallelujah! and pass the ho’s!!!!
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Anither thing I found telling.
AU commited to 17,000 tickets and only sold about 80% of them …..Come the fuck on, you gotta be shitting me!!!!, First championship game in the 108 years if football at the school and you cant sell 17,000 tickets to it!!!!!?????
If that had been a real football school like UGA or BAMA or LSU they would have sold every one of those tickets in 15 minutes flat.
Auburn … who are you trying to kid?
You cant buy class or tradition. And you cant buy fan or relevance. And for the record….Gene Chizik holding up a Crystal trophey is like Dressing up a pig for a debutante ball.
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Sorry guys my typing is atrocious today.
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WRONG..Auburn could have sold 100,000 tickets if they were available…the 2000 + tickets you are referring to were paid for by the University to give to staff, former players, etc…those tickets were never put in the ticket office to be sold to Tigers Unlimited Members (Donors) with a minimum of $10,000 donation or more, or the sidewalk alumni fans like bammer has. Get over you AUBsession, and clean up you mouth. Oh yeah, and we’ll spot you 24 or 21, whichever the case may be.
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I blame bloggers. Gotta have something to cluck our electronic tongues about. I am thinking of setting up shop in the Starbucks near BYU so I can rat out all the athletes that show up there. Hey, their code says coffee or tea is as bad as sex.
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The whole story is the utter scam they have going with the forced ticket sales.
The big bowls make the schools sell the WORST seats at highly inflated prices. The schools fail, and then eventually those seats get sold for MUCH LESS.
If that problem was fixed, the schools would be back to making a hefty profit off these games. Even with their super bloated ~500 support staff they bring.
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Sell “Bowl ticket” rights before the season. They can be refunded if they don’t make it.
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