Baller07 said

The Sports Business Journal this week has its annual Bowl coverage and reported the NO bowl has $650,000 budgeted for team payouts.  So SigEp is correct, $325,000 per team.

And did we verify if this is "split" among the other sunbelt teams?

The old $750,000 amount was tied to the number of tickets sold and like many of the minor bowls never maxed out.

Don't worry about splitting the money. There will be none to split. Between travel and the cost of the stay and showing your players a good time all week, the money will be spent. It is not unusual to lose money on minor bowls unless you trun it into a budget trip.

Some conferences even come up with some cash to help with the bottom line.

Enjoy the game and the bowl festivities for what it is. The first is always memorable and always fun.

Looking forward to the game. I don't expect the 10-12,000 we took there last time but we will have a good showing. How many do you guys expect to bring?

Good luck and congrats for your bid! 

According to Ted Hutton, this year the payout is $345,000.

Even if it's a wash as far as expenses goes, it still will have a major impact on a program that is still it it's infancy stages and continue to develope and mature as a program. 

The payout will allow the Band, Cheerleaders, and Dance Team to all make the trip,….it should also cover all the teams expenses.  At this point can we really ask for much more than to get all our expenses paid and be on national TV in a bowl game?

I talked to an official at Troy today about the payout.

Troy lost money last year in the New Orleans Bowl, yet had at least 12,000 fans at the game.

Here, in a nutshell, is why:

- The schools each receive around $130,000 in cash, which may not pay for all the airfare and buses, entertainment each day, food (tons of it), hotel rooms (week's worth) for the team, coaches, administration and staff, cheerleaders and dancers, band, etc.

Troy (which is frugal) estimated paying $1,600 per player in expenses. The 300-plus-member band probably inflated the tally a lot, as well.

- The rest of the $325,000 comes to each school in the form of $40 sideline tickets. BUT, the bowl sells end zone seats for $20 and then does not require those fans to sit in the end zones. That might explain why so many of Troy's fans were not counted in the official tally.

Troy lost an estimated $500,000 on the Silicon Valley Classic in 2004. This official has been involved with a number of smaller bowls and said none of them resulted in any significant profit to any of the schools - some in more respected conferences than the SunBelt.

We don't have a 300 member band, so we will probably save a lot of money there. 8)