Okay...
Generally, year after year, the AAC's non-CFP bowl revenue is $4-5 million. For the conference. At the broadest of looks, a little under half a million dollars per institution, or 1-2% of any of our athletic budgets. Obviously, better to have it than not to have it, but not a program make-or-break for any of us.
Taking a closer look at this year's non-CFP bowl lineup:
Myrtle Beach Bowl - unk - slhNavy91 est $300,000*
Gasparilla Bowl - $562,500**
Birmingham Bowl - $687,272**
Military Bowl - $1,033,445**
Fenway Bowl - unk - slhNavy91 est $1 million***
Hawaii Bowl - $600,000**
* estimate based on Frisco Bowl, former Miami Beach Bowl, Cure Bowl, etc
** NCAA data from 2018 season
*** estimate based on Military Bowl - looks about the same in ACC pecking order...
As a conference, we lost two-three million in bowl revenue...compared to approx $83 million in primary media rights deal, $27 million in CFP money, and however much we get for MBB NCAA tournament credits.
So from a conference perspective, it sucks, but in the confrerence-level accounting, meh.
That's really easy for slhNavy91 to say - for the third time in seven years in the conference, Navy is sitting home during bowl season waiting on a welfare check, right? Three teams laid out real money to travel, what do they get back?!
Generally speaking, when you wonder why the distributions by school on the conference's Form 990 vary so much, TWO big contributing factors are bowl-related. First, in between the time all the bowl revenues go to the conference and the time those revenues are divided between all the football programs, the conference will provide bowl participants some payment for expenses, which is very variable: "bigger" bowls you're allowed a bigger party, then expenses are calculated for per diem and for mileage. The million dollar Military Bowl, you bring a bigger band (or more administrators or boosters) than the Myrtle Beach Bowl, and DC hotels might get more expenses reimbursed, but Navy just gets expenses for the bus trip, not for a charter flight.
Second, never forget that a big chunk of any "bowl payout" comes as tickets, not cash. How the conference handles that between conference funds and rewarding schools for their ticket sales can be done many different ways. Big picture, there is probably some "break-even" point, like half the ticket allotment, such that ticket sales above and beyond go into the school's coffers rather than being shared amongst all eleven. Looking at one example, then - ECU getting a bowl within driving distance and selling 5,500 tickets was probably looking at pure gain...wiped out by the cancellation (unless those who bought through the school are offered a "donate or refund?" choice).
And then, Hawaii and Bahamas Bowls are frequently cited as always being handled differently by participating conferences - they're so far that the travel costs are outside the normal calculation range, and they're so hard for fans to get to on short notice that the schools get let off the hook for those ticket sales.
Which makes this a good time to look at Memphis AD Laird Veatch's letter:
(12-28-2021 09:36 AM)tigerjeb Wrote: from Laird Veatch's open letter post Hawaii Bowl - "Question 2 - what are the financial impacts? Contrary to what some might expect, Bowl games are not financially advantageous. In fact, unless you're in a NY6 game (as we were in the 2019 Cotton Bowl), Bowl games cost more than they bring in. Still, because the AAC covers the cost of the charter flight to the Hawaii Bowl and our staff has managed the Bowl wisely, we will operate within the AAC bowl stipend and supplemental Bowl allotment we budgeted for prior to the fiscal year. And we fully anticipate that ESPN and the AAC will fulfill those obligations, since we were fully prepared to fulfill ours"
When I read that, I noted the part "the AAC covers the cost of the charter flight to the Hawaii Bowl." and also the "we will operate within the AAC bowl stipend."
The conclusion I draw then -- expenses covered as normal, even without those bowls paying out. So the conference kitty overall will be smaller, so ALL eleven schools will get a slightly smaller distribution from the conference 30 June -- smaller by like single-digit percentage.
But I think it is highly likely that the three schools who got cancelled on will have their expenses reimbursed to the same level they would have expected had the games gone on.
Some loss for any who stood to GAIN from having good ticket sales.
Back up to the macro-level, I'm always interested by the discussion on the lines of: "Contrary to what some might expect, Bowl games are not financially advantageous. In fact, unless you're in a NY6 game (as we were in the 2019 Cotton Bowl), Bowl games cost more than they bring in."
Certainly, "Our line in the ledger for 'bowl expenses' is less than the line in our ledger for 'what the conference allotted us for bowl expenses' " could be a relatively common statement.
But....is the 'bowl expenses' line less than the 'what the conference allotted us for bowl expenses' PLUS the $300,000 common share of non-CFP bowl revenues in a normal year? Hmmmm...This year, having lost the revenue from three bowls, quite possibly. Normally, maybe not?
Then if you ALSO add 'our 1/11th of the $4 million NY6' or 'our 1/11th of the $6 million CFP' (which would be another $300k to $545k)...then you need to check your bowl spending. And I liked Laird's "our staff has managed the Bowl wisely," comment, so not pointing that at any of our school's in particular.
I always like this article from the 2013-2014 bowl season. There's obviously a big difference between the big bowls/payouts and the Myrtle Beach Bowls we get. But the "everyone loses money in bowls, omg!!1!" is way, way, way overplayed.
https://deadspin.com/teams-in-the-orange...1494130032
