Bowl Games Provide Big Payoff for College Football
By: Jerry Harshman
Tags: High School, Sports, College Football, Sports Features, Fundraising Ideas

Who decides which teams play in the bowl games?

The Power 5 Conferences completely dominate the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 12 and SEC make up the Power 5 Conferences. Together they control the most lucrative college football bowl games played on or around New Year’s Day.

The FBS Playoff Committee selects the participants for its top bowl games as well as the four teams vying for the National Championship. There was a lot of money riding on the Big Ten landing one of those four coveted berths in the playoffs. Ohio State seemed like the league’s best opportunity.

Don’t get lost in the numbers!

In an article in Sportico, writer Eben Novy-Williams expects revenue may be 10–15% less this year because of the Pandemic and the uncertainty of attendance at this year’s bowl games.

The FBS Bowls include the Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and the College Football Playoff game. The National Semi-Final games rotate each year between these six bowls. This year the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be the hosts.

Each Power Five Conference receives $66M in addition to money earned by participating in bowl games.

A deeper dive into the numbers reveals that a Big Ten team invited to play in one of the FBS Bowls receives about $2.4M for expenses. Teams who are chosen to play in the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl will receive $6M, while those chosen for the Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, or Fiesta Bowl will receive $4M each.

According to Football Poll.Com, Big Ten teams could receive invitations to other bowls. Ranked in order of estimated payouts for each participating school — Guaranteed Rate Bowl ($157,000), SERVPRO First Responder Bowl ($412,272), Pinstripe Bowl ($2.2M), Duke’s Mayo Bowl ($2.3M), Music City Bowl (2.85M), Outback Bowl ($3.2M) and Citrus Bowl ($4.1M).

The revenue comes from ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and television revenue.

Big Ten will participate in five Bowl Games.

Prior to selection Penn State, Nebraska and Minnesota indicated they would not accept bowl bids this year due to Covid-19 concerns. Five Big Ten schools have accepted bids to play in this year’s “Bowl-a-Rama!”

Wisconsin vs. Wake Forest; December 30th ; Duke’s Mayo Bowl; Charlotte, North Carolina ($2.3M)

Iowa vs. Missouri; December 30th ; TransPerfect Music City Bowl; Nashville, Tennessee ($2.85)

Northwestern vs. Auburn; January 1st ; Vrbo Citrus Bowl; Orlando, Florida ($4.1M)

Ohio State vs. Clemson; January 1st ; Allstate Sugar Bowl; New Orleans, Louisiana; ($6M)

Indiana vs. Mississippi; January 2nd ; Outback Bowl; Tampa, Florida; ($3.2M)

If these estimates are even close to accurate, the Big Ten can expect to earn nearly $85M from this year’s bowl revenue!

Photo by Mike Bowman on Unsplash

High Schools are finding it very difficult to make ends meet!

High school athletic programs aren’t nearly as fortunate. Covid-19 protocol in Indiana has limited ticket sales, corporate sponsorships are down and TV revenue is very limited at best. It is likely that the high schools in your area are experiencing similar issues.

To examine the extent of the high school’s revenue shortfall, I posed nine questions to six athletic directors in the Central Indiana Conference. The schools they represent are located in Blackford, Grant and Madison Counties in Indiana. The athletic directors who responded were Tony Uggen (Blackford), Gregory Kyle (Eastbrook), Marty Wells (Elwood), Ryan Plovick (Madison-Grant), Chanse Young (Mississinewa), and Ryan Fagan (Oak Hill).

1. Did your school still receive some revenue from last year’s basketball tournament?

Uggen said, “We got our revenue from last year’s basketball sectional which would have been all we would have gotten. Each school made just over $3,000 apiece after the sectional. The six competing schools shared 98% of the profit earned, while the IHSAA gets 2%.” The other athletic directors agreed their schools received their sectional shares before the Pandemic hit. The share in 2021 may be closer to $750 given the current attendance restrictions!

2. Did your school save some of its athletic budget for 2019–20 by cancelling all of the spring events?

All of the athletic directors said their schools saved money by not having last year’s spring sports. “Spring season is always deficit spending for us,” Plovick said. “There is NEVER a spring season that goes by where an athletic budget gains money.”

“We did save some money because of no spring sports,” Young added. “I am not sure I can put an exact number on it, but we had purchased some field supplies and equipment before season was canceled.”

“However, the money saved has also been consumed by having smaller athletic crowds during the 20–21 fall and winter season,” Kyle said.

3. Were your spring coaches still paid even though there was no competitive season in the Spring?

“All of our coaches were paid in the spring. That money came from corporation funds,” Plovick said. That was the case at all six of the schools.

This may have been because of the Cares Act and the Payroll Protecction Plan, but none of the ADs were sure.

Districts pay coaching salaries or stipends from their General Fund. This fund cannot be used to buy equipment, hire officials, pay athletic workers, or buy athletic supplies. However, a district’s Capital Project Fund may provide some relief for field maintenance as well as heating and lighting of facilities for athletic events.

“They (coaches) had already started their seasons. Track had (already participated) in a couple of meets. Once the shutdown hit, they (coaches) didn’t have any responsibilities.”

Uggen who also coaches baseball in the spring at Blackford added, “That was much appreciated by coaches. Keep in mind that several coaches work out with their teams during the limited contact periods and conditioning/lifting sessions. So many had already done a lot in advance of the season with their kids.”

4. Were you able to save some of the 2019–20 transportation budget by cancelling the 2019–20 spring sports?

All six ADs reported saving money on transportation. There were no contests so there were no transportation costs.

5. Did your school make some of these purchases which can be used this year to help save money in the 2020–21 athletic budget?

Plovick’s response was typical for all of the schools. “All spring sports were canceled at the beginning of the spring practice season. All uniforms, equipment, and field maintence purchases were ready to go. That expense will not be there this spring….thankfully,” he added.

Kyle agreed, “We purchased baseballs, softballs, baseball caps, and field supplies. All of which will be used this Spring.”

6. Since your school has been able to have only very limited fan attendance, how has this affected your school’s athletic budget?

“We made money this fall,” Wells said. “In Madison County we were allowed to sell 50% capacity inside and out. We moved our 7th and 8th grade volleyball games to the high school gym so we could social distance and sell more tickets. We did not sell all-sport tickets this year so all of our fans had to purchase individual game tickets.”

“Our budget has been drastically affected,” Plovick added. “This week, I had to send out an email to all members of our coaching staff effective immediately, that there will NOT be any new purchases. All 2021 uniforms rotation schedule, equipment, and other expenditures will need to be suspended for the time being.”

Fagan is following suit at Oak Hill. “We have asked coaches to only get things they absolutely have to have.”

“Money has definitely been lost at this point in the year,” Young said. “Fall was better financially than I had anticipated, but definitely a hit. Winter has been a loss of a minimum of $4,150 per contest.

“Obviously, it hurts,” Uggen added. ”Our goal for ‘20–21 is to try to break even. That will be hard, but losing the profit will force us to be careful about other expenses. So we are pretty tight with our money right now.

It’s Luke Brown’s senior year, and our basketball team is expecting to have a very good season, we probably will lose at least $15,000 a night for boys games alone. We were unable to sell season passes this year since there were concerns about whether we would even make it through the fall which would have required us to give refunds. So we chose not to sell passes this year as a result. Thankfully, we are still playing!”

Luke Brown’s 32.3 points and 6.8 assists per game has created enough excitement to Blackford High School to pack the Bruins’ gym for the past three years. The sharpshooter is currently ranked third in the state in scoring and plans to continue his career next year at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.

7. How much of a shortfall do you anticipate this year?

Plovick said he was surprised that teams played a fall season this year. “Since that did happen, and with limited spectators, expenses continued with less revenue coming in. This is now the trend, but it’s been even worse, this winter season,” he added. “Every event (HS, JH, 6th Grade) is losing money with major attendence restrictions and lack of concession money.”

“If things continue with the limited number of fans that we are permitted to have and looking at the gate receipts that we have lost I would roughly guess that this year we could lose as much as $10,000 to our athletic budget,” Young said.

Fagan agreed, “The fall season wasn’t real bad. The winter is where we are hurting. It will probably be a $10,000 — $15,000 hit.”

“At this pace this winter we could lose as much as $7500,” Wells added.

“Can’t venture to guess but several thousand compared to last year in gate receipts alone,” Uggen said. “However, that is an uncontrollable. So we are focusing on just trying to break even and stay afloat as best we can through the pandemic.

Fortunately, we were in pretty decent shape prior to the pandemic so we will make it through in decent shape, but if this goes into next year it could get interesting,” Uggen added. Sellout crowds for basketball the past three years helped provide this cushion for Blackford.

Kyle is hopeful Eastbrook can get back to 25% attendance. He still thinks his school has a chance to break even.

8. What type of fundraising projects have you planned to help make up the shortfall?

“We had a golf outing this year and this year was our best. I think people were ready to get out! We will also have a bowling fundraiser in early spring,” Wells said.

Fagan added, “Most of our teams do fundraisers to help buy luxury things. However, this year I have not let them spend the money to help us with operational cost if we have too. We did a golf scramble, sold apparel, sold discount cards, etc. The golf scramble was by far the most profitable.”

“We continue to rely on the athletic department supporters (advertisers) for a portion of our income and that has helped out tremendously,” Kyle shared. “Some of our teams have created videos asking for support, which appear on our website and that has generated some good financial support. It has been extremely difficult and we have relied more on more volunteers to work contest and teams have been told “NO” more often.”

“We have gone to using only volunteer event workers, purchased live steaming equipment and charge a pay-per-view to watch games from home,” Plovick said. “Also, we have raised money at different fundraising opportunities that haven’t been done in the past. The Athletic Department parked cars for the first time this fall at the James Dean Festival and raised over $2000 in one day.

“Madison-Grant chose to use the IHSAA Champions Network that is supported by the IHSAA for live streaming our events,” Plovick added. “The only cost initially was for equipment, which was around $3000 and we chose to pay $400 to have the ability to manipulate the cost per event.

“All of our streaming personnel are volunteers, which has been great so far. The school charges $8 for high school events and $5 for junior high events,” Plovick said. “We usually have 8–9 subscribers for junior high events and around 80 subscribers for high school events. The school receives 60% of the revenue from paid subscribers.”

Plovick isn’t worried about getting fans back in the stands once the Pandemic ends. “I feel that many people might stay home and watch live stream from home now that we have that option. I am hopeful people will take advantage of this. However, I don’t feel a large percentage of people will do that. There are still many people that would like to sit and watch a game live and in-person with a popcorn and drink in hand.”

Plovick admits it’s not always easy to find enough volunteers. “Many times I will find people to sell concessions or operate the scoreboard to work for free, but ticket takers and public address announcers are specialized and difficult to find. However, they have been dependable, once I get a committment.

I haven’t had any issues with support staff NOT working at events due to the fear of COVID. Everyone is very good about taking the appropriate precautions when working,” Plovick added.

9. Does your school have access to school sponsorships which can help with the budget deficit?

“We have a pretty good corporate sponsorship program that typically generates about $10,000,” Wells said. “This year we sent letters out telling our sponsors that we understood everybody had to make sacrifices and we were not expecting payment this year, BUT if the wanted to we would gladly accept it. We had 5 sponsors out of 27 still donate.”

Young added, “We did continue to offer our corporate sponsorships and thankfully many of our local businesses have been very generous in continuing with their sponsorship during this time.”

“We use sponsorships to help balance the budget,” Fagan said. “We actually saw no drop off in our sponsorship. We did however give a 25% discount on sponsors that had paid through the spring last year since we didn’t have a spring season.”

Kyle agreed, “We do have sponsorship and it helps out, however at this time we do not have enough support to solely support our athletic department.”

It was a different story at Madison-Grant. “Many of our small businesses within the area that supports athletics were hit hard as well,” Plovick said. “The advertising dollars were not there for schools over the summer and many thousands of dollars were lost. Unfortuantely, we do NOT have any local businesses that could signiciantly help offset the tens of thousands of dollar difference in lost revenue.

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

How can we help?

High schools face a future which is very hard to predict. Most likely this sports’ season will end with limited attendance and huge losses of revenue. Fortunately, there are a number of ways we can help:

Subscribe to the school’s media service and watch athletic contests online. Attend as many athletic events in person as permitted by current Health Department Guidelines. Make a cash donation by writing a check to the school’s athletic department. Donate the cost of an “all-sport” or “season ticket”, the cost of concessions you would normally buy at 5–10 athletic events, or simply $100. Offer to volunteer your services. Let the athletic director at your high school know if you are willing to keep a scorebook, run a scoreboard, sell tickets, run a stopwatch, pick places, or run a field event during track and field meets, etc.

As Indiana’s Governor Eric Holcomb likes to remind us, “We’re all in this together!”