Do large state schools "owe" it to the smaller in state schools to play them in sports?

Pretty sure Louisiana mandated that LSU has to play other instate schools. Makes sense to keep all the money here instead of playing teams from the same conferences as ULM, Tech, etc and sending that money to Arkansas/Alabama.

They don't owe it to them, but it makes fiscal sense for the big public universities to pay to host the smaller public schools instead of paying to host OOS schools

I don’t think they “owe” it to them, but I don’t get how some schools just refuse to play smaller ones in state. Arkansas doesn’t play Arkansas State in anything, last I checked.

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If you’re going to schedule games against smaller schools and pay them to come play, I’d rather that go to an in state team.

Obviously I don’t think they should exclusively play in state schools, but I don’t think they should actively avoid scheduling them either.

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i feel like this is where i fall on this

My opinion is if you are going to schedule a cupcake, at least make it an in state cupcake so their is some added benefit for all involved

WCA this has nothing to do with your thread therefore deserves to get downvoted but I just had to tell you how happy I am that I drafted Cody Bellinger in fantasy

I don't think they owe it to the smaller schools, but they do owe it to the state's taxpayers.

State schools should try to keep as much money in state as possible. That also means playing as few neutral site games as possible.

Can you imagine the economic impact on a city like Tuscaloosa if Alabama hosted a semifinal near New Year's? Probably at least $30 million.

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LSU is an odd situation. There’s not a small school that is a viable threat to beat them

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Yea we pay teams from Alabama to beat us instead

No

They don't owe it to them, but as others have said, if you are going to play OOC schools, then why not do it?

As for playing at the small school's location, I don't know if that would ever make financial sense. Maybe for baseball, and possibly for basketball, but never for football.

For a football hypothetical (and with hypothetical numbers), let's say Bama and Troy agree to play. Game is in Tuscaloosa. The ticket in BDS is $40 and they sell 75,000 seats for gross revenue of 3 million. They pay Troy a million to come play, and then spend $750,000 on security, gameday personnel, etc. Bama pockets 1.25 million.

Same as above, Bama and Troy, but they play in Troy, in a stadium that holds 30,000. Troy sells that ticket for $70. They gross 2.1 million in sales, but have to pay $500,000 on security, game day personnel, etc. Troy pockets 1.6 million, but Bama makes nothing.

Bama won't ever make that deal because they get nothing out of the deal. Troy will gladly go to Tuscaloosa and not argue about it because losing out on a potential $600,000 is less than losing out on a sure million.