Outcome of Oregon-USD season opener holds financial, status-quo power
The University of Oregon will write a $525,000 check to the University of South Dakota for Saturday’s first game of the football season.
That’s guaranteed money for USD’s athletic department just for making the trip to Eugene, Ore.
It’s not new information — the money received for playing the game with massive odds stacked against USD has been out since spring 2013.
If looked at loosely, that’s the cost for 26 out-of-state students to attend school at USD this year. Or about enough to place an entire USD cross country team on scholarship.
One, three-hour football game expected to give the third ranked nationally Oregon Ducks a 1-0 record is worth over half a million dollars, according to two universities totaling more than 30,000 students. Wanting to start the season 1-0 in football is worth that much money to Oregon.
College football’s big business trickles down to smaller schools.
USD has received money from the University of Wisconsin $425,000 in 2011. The University of Kansas gave USD $400,000 last season, and Kansas State University will pay USD $390,000 next season.
USD Athletic Director David Herbster said even with the Oregon game being worth approximately five percent of the school’s entire $11 million budget, these games are not all about the dollar signs.
“These kinds of games help our program, yes,” Herbster said. “But ultimately, this is an experience our student-athletes will never forget.”
I actually agree with Herbster. Yeah, the money lured my attention, but thinking long-term and what’s truly important about the trip to Eugene, it’s not the money. It is the fact that my school is playing one of the most touted programs in the nation Saturday. A program with numerous NFL players, Nike pampering and insane football tradition.
Herbster said getting USD’s football team on a national stage with a nationally followed team is critical to the development of any Division I program. And, by default, a portion of the check also pays for travel costs to play at Oregon.
He said Oregon’s uncertain program situation — involving an NCAA investigation surrounding recruitment violations and a coach change — played a major role in deciding to play.
Herbster also said playing in an environment like Oregon is an invaluable experience for Coyote athletes.
“I wouldn’t sell them out,” he said. “I wouldn’t put them in a situation where they would be harmed.”
To a casual fan or a hardcore college football fan, money plays too huge of a role in the sport, especially more today than previous years. And they are inevitable with the split in conferences signing national television network deals and those on low-end budgets.
These give-me games, pending Vegas-shattering upsets, feel like life and death. Not the life and death created in rivalries, but life and death created by business and money.
College sports are gliding in shark waters and it seems it’s only a matter of time until the integrity of the game is forfeited. The game check controls USD’s immediate athletic future.
