Posts: 3,788
Threads: 245
Joined: Dec 1969
$17M is the payout for each of the BCS bowls, IIRC. However, if your conference has two teams playing in the BCS, the second team paricipation is only $6.5M.
Where does the remaining $10.5M go? Whoever benefits from that has a clear incentive to make sure the big conferences get multiple bids. NIU going instead of Oklahoma makes a big differences in someone's annual operating budget...
And of course, N.otre D.ame, not having a conference affiliation, reaps the entire $17M benefit for participating in a BCS bowl. No dividing that chunk 10-12 ways (net of expenses.) Will the ACC be pissed that N.otre D.ame will benefit from the conference affiliation for Bowls but not share the BCS (or maybe their contract has some sharing in case of BCS pay out?)