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Bowling For Dollars: More Than Pride At Stake At BCS

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By TED JACKOVICS

tjackovics@tampatrib.com

Published: January 8, 2009

The Florida Gators prepared two game plans for tonight's national championship matchup with the Oklahoma Sooners.

Head football coach Urban Meyer devised one for the Gators' offense, defense and special teams.

The University Athletic Association prepared a separate plan in a budget for the game in Miami that will generate $17.5 million for each participant. After Southeastern Conference revenue sharing, the Gators' take amounts to $2.467 million.

Bowl games are all about money, image and bragging rights - and did we mention money? By the time tonight's title game expenses are deducted, the Gators will net $47,400 - but that's far from the full picture.

"The University of Florida will get far more than $2.5 million in value from the championship game," said Keith Weigelt, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

"They will get tens of millions of dollars of national exposure. More kids will want to go to school there. Florida will get a better pool of applicants."

Control of the $187 million that 34 bowl games will generate this season shapes the hard-core opposition by civic booster groups and some university administrators and coaches to a playoff system to determine the national football champion. Although many fans, players - and plenty of coaches, too - argue a playoff would be more equitable, that would upset the financial gravy train that is so heavily weighted to colleges in the elite conferences.

No Trickle-Down For Players

At first glance, the Gators' big financial winner from the title game is the coaching staff, which could get $960,000 in BCS title game-related salary supplements, 40 percent of UF's title game expenses, the UAA budget shows. That includes a guaranteed $150,000 bonus for Meyer for getting the Gators into the BCS game, plus an additional $100,000 if the Gators win the national title.

Transportation to and from Miami will cost $224,000; meals $190,000; lodging $247,000; and transporting and housing the band and cheerleaders $167,000, among other budget items accounting for $2.42 million in expenses.

By comparison, the players each get not quite $500 worth of gifts, including a credit to order $300 in Sony merchandise, plus a Tourneau watch, a pair of Crocs shoes, a New Era 59fifty hat and an Ogio duffle bag from BCS organizers, Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal reported.

The athletes get shortchanged, said Weigelt, whose research and teaching roles at Penn include a program for National Football League players on managing their money.

"The college players get some educational value, some compensation in the form of athletic scholarships, but compare that $30,000 or $40,000 a year to the money that is made from major sports," Weigelt said.

Coaches Profit; University Benefits

Weigelt said what the coaches will get in title game incentives is common in the business world. It's basically pay for performance in a different context.

"It is really pretty small potatoes," he said. "If they looked at hedge-fund operators, they would get 5 to 10 percent up front and 20 percent of the profits."

People in industries where an individual's performance can generate incredible profits, such as a chief executive, hedge-fund manager, movie star or coach, can demand and expect large bonuses, said Hal Stern, acting dean of the Donald Bren School for Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

"Of course, they sometimes look silly in hindsight: Witness the current view of bonuses to CEOs and hedge-fund managers," Stern said. "Perhaps the large salaries should be enough of an incentive for these people to perform well."

Athletic programs good enough to be invited to major events such as bowl games also generate funds indirectly.

The interest in UF's athletic programs creates a bond among far-flung alumni and a continued passion for UF's academic programs, said Tom Johnson, a UF graduate who was founder, chairman and chief executive of the Tampa-based office systems distributor Global Imaging Systems Inc., which Xerox Corp. acquired in 2007 for $1.5 billion.

"My pledge is whatever I give to the athletic department, I match with funds to a university college of my choice," Johnson said. He endowed the Thomas S. Johnson Master of Science in Entrepreneurship program at UF's Warrington College of Business Administration and is one of UF's top 25 contributors, the Gator Boosters Inc. Web site reports.

"We get drawn to the university with the success of the football team, the basketball team, the women's softball and volleyball teams. It tends to create support for the old adage, 'learn and return.'"

Where Does The Money Go?
$2.47 million - Revenue the University of Florida will receive from the title game
$828,000 - Amount that will go toward transportation, lodging, meals and other expenses for the team, band and cheerleaders
$960,000- Amount that will go toward salary supplements for the coaching staff
$47,400[ Amount left over for the University Athletic Association, which is responsible for all the intercollegiate athletics programs at UF

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817.

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