Well, they paid $18 million in hard coin to forego $70 million from the American and $300 million from the Atlantic to essentially be a travel hub for the coastal schools since Stanford wouldn’t sign the ACC deal without assurances about reduced Olympic travel costs.
They think they will get that back in playoff revenue, but we’ve seen no assurances that will happen in equal shares going forward. They also get a full share of basketball and bball post season but that’s peanuts.
To do that they had to commit to $200 million in stadium upgrades. Which they raised from about 5 donors.
So no regular season revenue for nine years for sure. Maybe and maybe not an equal share of any play off revenue, basketball and enhanced Olympics. The size of Ford Stadium prevents any significant increase ticket in ticket revenue, though luxury tickets will go up. So maybe a paltry $2 million at the very most. $15 to $20 million, at best, over the next nine years. Not a significant amount to influence decision making but an additional bullet point to chatter on about when your decision is challenged in the press.
They are trying to get to R1 status and match TCU. Getting in the ACC will help that. Letting 5 old men who know they will die before they can spend all their money on a football team they played for 60 years ago is just the vehicle to get there.
If this was such a sure thing, they wouldn’t be moving all the short term financial risk to off campus actors.