re: Why was Virginia Tech playing at Old Dominion

The former Baylor AD (before he had to resign) was heavily questioned about why Baylor was playing at schools in lesser conferences. He stated that it was to avoid the expense of having to pay schools to come play you and that this number had been going up over the years.

I would assume that for schools with smaller attendance this is a bigger deal ( ie that if you only sell 45k tickets then paying a school a couple hundred grand to play you it a big deal)