An interesting twist on "buy games"

[tornado]

Last night's game at Kansas State, just like Saturday's at Memphis were "buy games"....or "guarantee games"...
where teams go on the road without the hope of a return home game and just pick up the check for playing there...

Here's a pretty good explanation of the reasoning behind "buy games"...

BUT also there's an interesting twist - that in at least one well known case...
the team's head coach appears to be sacrificing his team and throwing them to the wolves - playing an almost guaranteed loss-game, on the road, for a BIG paycheck - BUT -- the head coach gets a significant hunk of that paycheck...
thus the more the team goes out on the road and plays top opponents without much chance of winning - then the more he profits....hmmmm...

http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/12/10/report-long-beach-state-coach-dan-monson-profits-off-of-teams-buy-games/related/

[tornado]

Eastern Michigan has a guarantee game in football coming up with Michigan State - and they are set to earn over $500,000 to play Michigan State..

but they asked out because they were sure they could do better - and they did...
they got a $650,000 guarantee game at Missouri!

http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2015/01/michigan_state_ad_mark_hollis_20.html

nice payday...

[ollienanyes]

be careful what you buy...

2012: University of Illinois paid Louisiana Tech 700K to play them in football.

Final score: La. Tech 52, Illinois 24, and it wasn't that close.

[tornado]

here's an interesting buy game scenario...

Akron was scheduled to play a football game at Nebraska Saturday..

but numerous storms caused a 2 hour 40 minute delay due to lightning..then the game was cancelled...
Multiple scenarios were discussed, including playing the game Sunday (or even Monday) but none could be agreed upon due to more storms on Sunday and the "logistics" of Akron's need to return & not risk missing classes. Plus, Akron already had all their departure plans made and would have been required to cancel them all and try to re-do them and would have had to scramble to find accommodations & lodging for literally hundreds of players, staff & others - and those accommodations simply weren't available within a reasonable distance range. in Nebraska.

So it appears the game will be cancelled, but no suitable agreement is made regarding the
$1.7 million payout Akron was to have received -
Nebraska may have to refund ticket-owners and thus Akron could well lose most or all of their anticipated $1.7 million and even lose a bunch (couple hundred thousand more) due to the costs of travel for the entire team...

The possibility exists it could be made up later in the season but there's uncertainty there, too - as one team could possibly have already secured a good record and a bowl spot, and certainly wouldn't want to add another late game that would risk loss or injury.

https://www.ohio.com/akron/sports/college-football-canceled-openers-leave-schools-scrambling-to-find-games-university-of-akrons-1-17-million-payout-in-question