Elimination Of Guarantee Games Increases Likelihood Of NCAA Breakup

PISCATAWAY, New Jersey  --  Last week, news surfaced that the Big Ten, in a move to strengthen the leagues overall non-conference football schedule, would vote to prohibit members institutions from playing Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams. While many fans of both the B1G and other BCS leagues largely support any decision that will bolster their respective team’s schedules with more quality opponents, the news was not nearly as well received by smaller schools who rely on the money these “guarantee games” generate to fund their own athletic programs.

Athletic Directors such as Troy Dannen of the University of Northern Iowa think the loss of such games could cripple the budget of institutions like his. “I would tell you the loss of the Big Ten schools will be devastating, to UNI and to a lot of our peers,” says Dannen, adding, “If you think this will stop at the Big Ten…I look at things happening in the equity leagues in fives, and so I have to believe this might lead to additional dominoes.”


An in depth look into the Savannah State program, with head coach Horace Broadnax, as the Tigers go on the road to play a proverbial money game.

Guarantee games have been the life blood of many athletic departments, particularly for institutions who do not belong to conferences under the BCS moniker. These “paycheck games” as they are sometimes referred to – the head coach is often literally handed a check before boarding the bus home – provide a substantial portion of the athletic budgets for schools with smaller fan bases and budgets that are a fraction of their larger Division I brethren. For example, this past fall, aforementioned Northern Iowa collected almost $1 million in guarantees from playing  Iowa and Wisconsin, which accounts for almost 1/3 of the school’s $3.3 million dollar football budget. Savannah State University, also a FCS school, was paid some $860,000 to be thumped by the Oklahoma and Florida State football teams by a combined score of ...

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SHORT LIST OF 2013 HBCU FOOTBALL"GUARANTEE MONEY GAMES"

Southern U. at Houston, 8/29 or 8/31/13
Arkansas Pine Bluff at Arkansas State, 8/31/13
North Carolina Central at Duke, 8/31/13
Howard at Eastern Michigan, 8/31/13
Jackson State at Tulane, 8/31/13
Morgan State at Army, 8/31/13
Alcorn State at Mississippi State, 9/7/13
Grambling State at Louisiana-Monroe, 9/7/13
South Carolina State at Clemson, 9/7/13
Norfolk State at Rutgers, 9/7/13
Prairie View A&M at Texas State, 9/7/13
Savannah State at Troy U., 9/7/13
Howard at Old Dominion U*., 9/14/13
Bethune-Cookman at Florida International, 9/14/13 
Florida A&M at Ohio State, 9/21/13
Savannah State at Miami (Fla.), 9/21/13
Norfolk State at Old Dominion*, 10/26/13
Alabama State at Kentucky, 11/2/13
Alabama A&M at Georgia Tech, 11/23/13

* New Conference USA member 2014

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