UConn took $1.8 million bath on Fiesta Bowl rout

Earning a bid to one of the venerable, prestigious BCS bowl games is usually considered a prelude to a big payday, and on paper, it looks like just that. The Fiesta Bowl, for example, doled out $17 million in January to both the Big East and the Big 12 as a reward for their respective conference champions, Connecticut and Oklahoma, being selected for the game. Through the Big East's revenue-sharing plan, UConn took home a little over $2.5 million of that number – a nice haul for the biggest game in school history, right?

Right. Well, at least until you add in the university's obligations to the Fiesta Bowl for unsold tickets and hotel rooms, and then the obligatory expenses for travel, lodging, food, alumni parties, etc. In that case, according to documents obtained by UConn's student newspaper, the bottom line on the trip was a $1.8 million deficit:

The university incurred total expenses of $4,280,998 at the Fiesta Bowl while only receiving a payout of $2,523,200 from the Big East. By far the largest expense the university incurred came from absorbed ticket sales. The university sold only 2,771 out of an allotment of 17,500 tickets, resulting in the university absorbing 14,729 tickets worth $2,924,385.
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That expense completely soaked up UConn's revenue allotment of $2.5 million from the Big East all by itself. UConn's losses were then further inflamed by the costs of travel, meals, lodging and other bowl expenses.

Even by the usual standards of postseason losses, $1.8 million is a huge bath – and one born in part of the Huskies' large bills for travel ($685,195, or more than $1,200 per player, coach, administrator, spouse, band member and cheerleader), meals and lodging ($460,941) and assorted expenses to ensure a good, comfortable time ($210,477). But by far, the largest line on the bill was the 14,700-plus tickets the university was forced to buy from the Fiesta Bowl and couldn't sell.

It's not that UConn fans didn't make the trip: Official attendance for the game (a 48-20 Oklahoma win) was 67,232 – far, far more than 2,771 of whom were partisans for the Huskies. But only a fool (or a very generous booster) would get his ticket through the school, which is forced to sell at well above market price because it's forced to buy at well above market price from the bowl itself. In UConn's case, Fiesta Bowl tickets started at $111 for some of the worst seats in the house, four or five times the going rate for similar seats on online ticket sites like StubHub. The loyalists who bought 2,771 tickets through the university were basically making a small donation to the athletic department, and most of them probably wouldn't have it they'd realized the seats could be had for much cheaper.

That's some racket: The Fiesta Bowl gets paid, the hotels get paid, ESPN gets paid, guaranteed, while the institution(s) of higher learning fall headlong into the red. Hopefully they got to enjoy a little sun, at least.

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Hat tip: Dan Wetzel.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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