I believe it was said some time ago that SU needed to play opponents that would help to supplement its athletic budget. That is one reason we did not return the game to McNeese. Playing a game at McNeese's Cowboy Stadium with its 17,000 seats would not have benefitted SU at all financially. It was worth it for SU to simply pay them the $60,000 contract exit fee and schedule a game against a FBS school such as ULL for a contract fee of $100,000 plus the revenue generated from the sale of 6000 tickets, in 2009. Northwestern's Turpin Stadium seats only 15,300. SU cannot make money in such a small venue. In the past, NSU could ony promise a return game. But the difference was that SU would put 10,000 butts in Turpin while NSU might at best bring 500 fans to Mumford. So to even the playing field, NSU has agreed to pay SU more than $40,000 to play in Turpin this year, the largest amount it will have ever paid to a FCS opponent. Likewise, ULL will pay SU more than$250,000 to visit Lafayette next year and ULM has offered a similar sum for some future date. These schools have come to realize the financial benefits of playing SU, let alone filling every seat in the house. To grow our athetic prowess and our athletic budget, SU simply has to make every OCC game a profitable venture. With a fanbase the size of SU's, we can afford to be creative in the amount of contractual revenue we demand. Why not use our extraordinary traveling fanbase to our financial benefit?
