The University of Maryland will receive $20 million to $30 million from the Big Ten as a travel subsidy, according to Jeff Barker of The Baltimore Sun. Maryland is now the easternmost team within the conference and therefore have the most distance to travel, so this subsidy is to help offset the travel costs for the various athletic teams.
Maryland to receive multi-million travel subsidy from Big Ten, per report
The University of Maryland will receive a big travel subsidy from the Big Ten due to having the most distance to travel of any team within the conference.
Evan Habeeb-US PRESSWIRE
According to the report, this subsidy was promised to Maryland during negotiations last year. There are no official numbers, and there likely won’t be given that all financial details of deals like these are kept private, but the range above is still a good bit of money.
Some of the furthest matchups in Maryland’s future would include trips to Nebraska and Iowa, each of which is over 900 miles. Barker notes that Maryland projected that their travel costs would double after joining the conference.
This subsidy is just icing on the cake, though. Maryland already gets good money each year for being in the conference and them turning down the offer to join would have been shocking, to say the least. They were heavily pursued by the conference and this subsidy enforces that point.
As to how the money is paid to the university, that was not stated in the report. It also said that whether it’s paid in a lump sum or in payments is an unknown factor. All that’s known for sure is that this is a strong play from the conference that clearly wanted Maryland and its TV market on board.
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