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08-20-2006, 04:52 PM
Home games, ticket sales key to Sun Belt strategy
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
Archive
How competitive does this Sept. 2 matchup sound to you?
Team A's football program produced $53.2 million in revenue in 2004, according to an Indianapolis Star database of college athletic spending. Team B's program produced $1.9 million in revenue.
Team A's profit after expenses that year was $39.3 million, making it the most lucrative program in the nation according to the survey. (Twenty-three schools did not submit data.) Team B ran a $1.8 million deficit, 152nd in the nation.
Team A spent $4.9 million paying its football coaches. Team B spent $1.1 million.
Team A had a recruiting budget of $366,000. Team B spent $62,000.
Team A is Texas of the Big 12, the defending national champion. Team B is North Texas of the Sun Belt, which went 2-9 last year and ranked No. 161 in the final Sagarin Ratings. They're both Division I-A programs and both from the same state -- and that's about where the similarities end.
The fiscal disparity helps explain why the game is a guaranteed mismatch, played for a guaranteed payout of $400,000 from the Longhorns to the Mean Green. It's the third installment of a four-game series played every other year -- all in Austin. Combined score of the games in 2002 and '04: 92-0.
READ THE REST AT: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=2554796
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
Archive
How competitive does this Sept. 2 matchup sound to you?
Team A's football program produced $53.2 million in revenue in 2004, according to an Indianapolis Star database of college athletic spending. Team B's program produced $1.9 million in revenue.
Team A's profit after expenses that year was $39.3 million, making it the most lucrative program in the nation according to the survey. (Twenty-three schools did not submit data.) Team B ran a $1.8 million deficit, 152nd in the nation.
Team A spent $4.9 million paying its football coaches. Team B spent $1.1 million.
Team A had a recruiting budget of $366,000. Team B spent $62,000.
Team A is Texas of the Big 12, the defending national champion. Team B is North Texas of the Sun Belt, which went 2-9 last year and ranked No. 161 in the final Sagarin Ratings. They're both Division I-A programs and both from the same state -- and that's about where the similarities end.
The fiscal disparity helps explain why the game is a guaranteed mismatch, played for a guaranteed payout of $400,000 from the Longhorns to the Mean Green. It's the third installment of a four-game series played every other year -- all in Austin. Combined score of the games in 2002 and '04: 92-0.
READ THE REST AT: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=2554796