Arkansas - Texas A&M Game Deal
Interesting material for Hog Fans to read:
One of the more stunning news stories in the past week was written by Brian Davis of the Dallas Morning News, Texas A&M, Arkansas get lucrative deal at new Cowboys stadium, as he detailed the contract that Texas A&M and Arkansas are on the verge of signing that will pair up those two schools in a game at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium starting in 2009. They are working on a 6 to 8 year contract, and each school would receive $5 million annually for playing each other!
If anyone didn't think there is an enormous amount of money being made in college football, here we have a regular season game that is guaranteeing a $10 million payout, $5 million each, to the two schools involved which is more money than every post-season bowl except the BCS games. Oklahoma and Texas have been playing for years at the Cotton Bowl, and their most recent contract calls on them to receive $4.7 million annually each, but OU and Texas are two of the top teams in the game. Neither Arkansas or Texas A&M have won a conference championship in years, and these two schools are now set to garner an enormous amount of money to show up in Dallas annually to do battle. How can one football game generate in excess of $10 million you might ask, since that is the minimum the people putting together the game (no doubt Jerry Jones, the city of Dallas, and the owners of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium) are paying out. Let's take a look at the numbers, and see how in the world so much money can be generated from one football game.
Checking out the website for the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/, we find that the stadium will be able to seat up to 100,000 people and that they will have 200 luxury suites. Assuming a conservative 80,000 tickets sold for the Arkansas - Texas A&M game at an average of $75.00 a ticket generates around $6.0 million. Add in an additional $500,000 in suite sales and parking fees and you are up to $6.5 million. Those 80,000+ people have to eat and drink, and for sure Aggie and Hog fans are going to do plenty eating and drinking, so that adds up to another $1.0 million or so, which brings us to $7.5 million. In the Dallas Morning News article it mentions a possible title sponsor for the game, and that should go for around $500 K annually, so now we are up $8.0 million, which still leaves us $2.0 million short of the minimum payout to the schools. Here is where the magic of TV suddenly appears, and it shouldn't be too hard for ESPN/ABC to sell advertising commercials around the Arkansas/Texas A&M game to generate at least $2.0 million for the game each year.
Lastly, throw Jerry Jones into the mix and you can be sure that ever conceivable marketing angle will be covered which will generate at least another $1 million or so in "Jerry Jones dollars" which turns an unbelievable $10 million guarantee into something very doable.
No doubt, we will continue to see more of these off-campus games as the dollars continue to increase, and schools get the opportunity to make a bunch of money, showcase their schools in games in major markets, and provide a new and exciting events for their fans and alumni. With both Oklahoma/Texas and Arkansas/Texas A&M playing football games in back-to-back weeks at the same time the Texas State Fair is going on, there are going to be some fun times to be had in Dallas in the coming years.
One of the more stunning news stories in the past week was written by Brian Davis of the Dallas Morning News, Texas A&M, Arkansas get lucrative deal at new Cowboys stadium, as he detailed the contract that Texas A&M and Arkansas are on the verge of signing that will pair up those two schools in a game at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium starting in 2009. They are working on a 6 to 8 year contract, and each school would receive $5 million annually for playing each other!
If anyone didn't think there is an enormous amount of money being made in college football, here we have a regular season game that is guaranteeing a $10 million payout, $5 million each, to the two schools involved which is more money than every post-season bowl except the BCS games. Oklahoma and Texas have been playing for years at the Cotton Bowl, and their most recent contract calls on them to receive $4.7 million annually each, but OU and Texas are two of the top teams in the game. Neither Arkansas or Texas A&M have won a conference championship in years, and these two schools are now set to garner an enormous amount of money to show up in Dallas annually to do battle. How can one football game generate in excess of $10 million you might ask, since that is the minimum the people putting together the game (no doubt Jerry Jones, the city of Dallas, and the owners of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium) are paying out. Let's take a look at the numbers, and see how in the world so much money can be generated from one football game.
Checking out the website for the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/, we find that the stadium will be able to seat up to 100,000 people and that they will have 200 luxury suites. Assuming a conservative 80,000 tickets sold for the Arkansas - Texas A&M game at an average of $75.00 a ticket generates around $6.0 million. Add in an additional $500,000 in suite sales and parking fees and you are up to $6.5 million. Those 80,000+ people have to eat and drink, and for sure Aggie and Hog fans are going to do plenty eating and drinking, so that adds up to another $1.0 million or so, which brings us to $7.5 million. In the Dallas Morning News article it mentions a possible title sponsor for the game, and that should go for around $500 K annually, so now we are up $8.0 million, which still leaves us $2.0 million short of the minimum payout to the schools. Here is where the magic of TV suddenly appears, and it shouldn't be too hard for ESPN/ABC to sell advertising commercials around the Arkansas/Texas A&M game to generate at least $2.0 million for the game each year.
Lastly, throw Jerry Jones into the mix and you can be sure that ever conceivable marketing angle will be covered which will generate at least another $1 million or so in "Jerry Jones dollars" which turns an unbelievable $10 million guarantee into something very doable.
No doubt, we will continue to see more of these off-campus games as the dollars continue to increase, and schools get the opportunity to make a bunch of money, showcase their schools in games in major markets, and provide a new and exciting events for their fans and alumni. With both Oklahoma/Texas and Arkansas/Texas A&M playing football games in back-to-back weeks at the same time the Texas State Fair is going on, there are going to be some fun times to be had in Dallas in the coming years.
