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Heavily subsidized Duck Athletic program paid $3M for body-bag games

Henry Houston has the report in the Eugene Weekly:

UO spent more than any other Pac-12 college team this year for its nonconference schedule — sometimes scornfully called “body-bag” games because of the mismatch between teams. Bowling Green received $900,000, Portland State received $500,000 and San José State received $1.6 million, according to contracts obtained by Eugene Weekly. …

The high cost was an aberration of scheduling, says Eric Roedl, deputy athletic director at UO.

Originally, the UO was planning on playing Texas A&M instead of San José State, but a clause in that agreement allowed Texas A&M to back out if it left its football conference. In 2011, Texas A&M announced it would leave the Big 12 conference for Southeastern Conference. The university voided its contract with UO in 2016, Roedl says.

Other contracts obtained by EW have a penalty clause if the game is canceled. Texas A&M didn’t have one.

“It was a unique agreement,” Roedl adds. …

Whoops. Sounds like it’s going to be a while before the academic side can stop subsidizing them. I wonder if Roedl is going to hit up ASUO for another increase?

4 Comments

  1. Dog 10/04/2018

    “an aberration of scheduling”

    what a great out

    brilliant

    Geez, I didn’t show up to teach my class today due to an
    aberration of scheduling. Brilliant …

  2. Ben 10/08/2018

    My guess is it would still match your analysis, but it would be interesting to see a cost analysis comparing body bag games with the alternative (ticket, donation, and apparel revenue from hype around a better record, as well as having to travel to an extra game every other year due to home and home deals). The cost of a body bag game is certainly recouped in part but it would be an interesting comparison.

  3. Simplicius Simplicissimus 10/16/2018

    WAIT A SECOND – isn’t the academic side still subsidizing athletic student special ed with 4 Million? Who has really Paid for the body bags???

    • uomatters Post author | 10/16/2018

      Last I checked it was only $2M, and despite the best efforts of football coach whatever his name was and his weight trainer, it’s been a while since any Duck athletes died on the field or in practice. Meanwhile our Calc 241 students are dropping like flies – but apparently Canzano and his ilk just don’t care about the nerds.

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