In mid-September, Ole Miss went in front of the NCAA Committee On Infractions, and in the coming months, the NCAA will decide the outcome of its years-long probe into athlete benefits.
How NCAA sanctions could cost Ole Miss a $3 million 2020 game contract
In addition to the Rebels’ other worries, a future game contract includes a big line about money.
Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Ole Miss went in front of the Committee regarding 21 allegations. Fifteen of those are Level I (the most serious). The school does have some self-imposed sanctions, but the safe bet is that the NCAA will add to them as long as its case holds up. The fallout from the scandal has already cost Ole Miss more than $9 million. Now, there’s even more money on the line for the Rebels.
It has to do with a future neutral-site football game.
Via a Freedom Of Information Act request, SB Nation acquired Ole Miss’ game agreements for the 2016 Camping World Classic against Florida State, the 2020 AdvoCare Texas Kickoff against Baylor, and the 2021 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic against Louisville. Tucked into the contract for the 2020 game is this clause (emphasis ours):
If the School is placed under conference or NCAA sanctions so that that value of the Event is materially decreased as determined by [ESPN Regional Television] (e.g. sanctions that allow for immediate transfer of football student athletes or a television/distribution media ban), then ERT and the School shall mutually agree upon a reduction of the Fee (or termination of this agreement), as appropriate.
ESPN Events (ESPN Regional Television, at the time this agreement was signed) is a subsidiary of ESPN that operates games like the AdvoCare and Camping World kickoffs, as well as bowl games and college basketball events. Other groups run other neutral-site games, such as Peach Bowl, Inc.’s Chick-fil-A Kickoff.
This clause gives ESPN Events the right to discuss canceling or lessening Ole Miss’ payout, if the Rebels get seriously popped by the NCAA in a way that enables immediate transfer of players or incurs a TV ban.
The 2020 agreement includes the line about termination of the agreement, while the 2016 agreement does not. Besides that, the language is virtually the same. For the 2020 game, the Rebels are slated to make $2.75 million, but the amount can increase to $3 million if Ole Miss can sell 20,000 tickets in Houston.
This exact language is more likely to apply to Ole Miss than Baylor, despite BU’s recent criminal scandal.
Baylor is also under NCAA investigation, but nothing has yet indicated sanctions are likely. The NCAA’s enforcement typically only covers athlete eligibility and amateurism, not actual crimes, like the ones that took place at Baylor. The governing body made an exception in the Penn State scandal, then faced years of legal wrangling while walking back those sanctions.
How frequently are those two penalties applied?
- In recent high-profile NCAA cases, USC and Penn State players were allowed to transfer and play immediately. It’s a way to protect players who had nothing to do with what a school is being punished for, but it isn’t part of every NCAA decision. For what it’s worth, Ole Miss’ rivals have been sizing up the roster for potential transfers for months now.
- But the NCAA hasn’t handed out a TV penalty in any sport since 1996. The last FBS program to get one was, coincidentally, Ole Miss in 1995. The organization will likely never hand out a TV ban again in major college football, due to the threat of a lawsuit from television networks.
Neutral-site openers are a big source of revenue for certain programs.
Florida and Michigan each got $6 million to open 2017 in Dallas. Florida State and Alabama each made $5 million for their troubles in Atlanta, and Tennessee and Georgia Tech $2.85 million for their Labor Day evening tilt.
The 2021 Chick-fil-A Kickoff game has the Rebels scheduled to receive a payout of $4.25 million. The agreement with Peach Bowl, Inc. does not include any language like the two agreements Ole Miss made with ESPN Events for its 2016 or 2020 games.
When asked by SB Nation via email if the game’s operators reserve the right to cancel the game or reduce the payout, a spokesperson for Peach Bowl, Inc. responded:
“Ole Miss and Louisville have both been great partners of ours and we are proud to have them in our Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game again. It is our intent to host this game, as planned, and we look forward to welcoming both teams and fan bases back to Atlanta to open the 2021 season.”
When asked if the future game would go on regardless of what happened with the NCAA, the spokesperson reiterated his previous statement.
The language was not created specifically for Ole Miss or Baylor, by the way.
It’s fairly boilerplate. In Michigan and Florida’s separate agreements for this season’s Arlington game (each signed in December 2013), the language is even more specific.
In a lengthy subsection, it allows game cancellation if a school is determined to have committed a major violation of NCAA rules. In the three years leading up to the game, ESPN Productions and the other organizers had the right to cancel within 30 days of the NCAA sanctioning either team with:
- allowing players to freely leave,
- the loss of eight or more scholarships per year, in either of its three most recent recruiting classes,
- a postseason ban of two or more seasons, including 2015 and 2016.
However, cancelation only applied to sanctions incurred before Jan. 1, 2016. After that date, there would’ve been a reduction of payout for the offending school, down from $6 million to a floor of $3.5 million.
The contract also mandated organizers to work together with either school to find an FBS opponent for 2017’s opening weekend, if a cancellation occurred after July 2015.
As far as Ole Miss is concerned, relatively speaking, any loss of $3 million would be another drop in the bucket.
That amount isn’t even what the school paid former coach Hugh Freeze annually. Freeze was making well over $4 million. The school budgeted over $100 million for athletics in general for 2017 and received a payout of over $38 million from the SEC in its recent revenue distribution alone.
But regardless, another $3 million in losses would be another $3 million in losses.
No matter what the NCAA adds onto Ole Miss’ sanction pile, the 2020 game will likely still go off as planned, despite the threat of payout reduction or cancellation. But the chance that it won’t is still there, in black and white.
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