Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.
Back in early March, we published a list of schools that Miami (OH) attempted to schedule in men’s basketball, providng some useful context behind why their SOS wasn’t very good last season.
I noticed from social media that many fans didn’t appear to understand how those schedules are actually constructed…from when teams typically secure opponents, to how guarentees work. So we tried to explain that system too.
Since those stories, I’ve actually been FOIAing for hundreds of game contracts, not just for men’s basketball, but for football, women’s basketball, baseball, softball and women’s volleyball. Part of this is to add those contracts to the Extra Points Library, sure, but I also realized that I didn’t totally understand how the guarantee system worked for other sports. I have a general idea of how much it costs to “buy” a P4 college football game or a major men’s basketball game, but what about softball? Women’s basketball? What influences how much those teams earn?
As of this morning, we actually have slightly over 1,000 total game contracts in the Extra Points Library, with more being added just about every day. Based on that data, here’s what I’ve learned so far:
Remind me…what’s a game guarantee? Or a Buy game?
When two teams agree to play an out-of-conference game in almost every sport, they sign a contract. That contract explains who is charge of paying for the officials, who will broadcast the game on TV/Radio, what the penalties would be if the game is canceled, how many tickets can go to the visiting team band, etc. They’re usually not super long contrats.
Here’s part of an example:
They also often (but not always) include something called a Game Guarantee, or a payment that the home team pays to the visiting team. When low-major schools travel to play larger and wealthier opponents, the home team will often pay for travel expenses, plus something extra…the guarantee. These are also often called “buy games”, because one team is paying the other to come play.
These fees can represent significant revenue streams for low and mid-major athletic departments. Across all sports, a G5 program could potentially earn north of $3 million a year in just game guarantees. In FY25, for example, Kent State University earned more than $4.2 million across all sports in guarantees. Western Michigan, Akron, Fresno State, UTEP, UTSA and Bowling Green all reported earning more than $3 million.
So whats the going rate for one of these games?
It depends on the sport, but also geography, who is doing the buying, when the game is happening, and many other factors.
Based on the contracts we currently have in EPL, here are what those ranges look like:
Men’s Basketball: $1,000-$250,000, (most common range: $50,000-$110,000)
Women’s Basketball: $1,000-$45,000
Football: $100,000 - $2,700,000
Baseball: $0-$25,000
Softball: $0-$7,500
The caveat here is that because we’re relatively early in this process, we don’t have a complete dataset with dozens of contracts per school. You, dear reader, can help us, if you happen to have any game contracts lying around your hard drive. I’m happy to trade those for access to the EPL,
These are pretty ranges! The who, what, when, where and why…after the jump.
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