So why would a team so helplessly over-matched even schedule that game? Money.

Kent State reportedly pulled in $850,000 for making the trip up to Columbus, and plenty of other schools in small conferences make deals just like it.

Cincinnati received a similar payout for visiting Ohio State, and Hawaii will get $1.2 million to be the second team on OSU's schedule this year. One the other hand, the Buckeyes will start their season at ACC power Virginia Tech but will only receive $350,000.

Traditional wisdom presumes bigger teams command a larger payout, but that's not the case. It turns out convincing a team to play a game it will almost certainly lose costs quite a pretty penny.

The power conference teams are happy to make the deal because fans, of course, like winning, and large schools with big stadiums can make millions of dollars on a single game. And the smaller schools don't really have a choice.

When the Big 10 considered eliminating these so-called "paycheck games" in 2013, athletic directors at smaller programs scrambled to try and keep the match-ups intact.

University of Northern Iowa Athletic Director Troy Dannen told Forbes, "The loss of the Big Ten schools will be devastating to UNI and to a lot of our peers." Northern Iowa made almost a million dollars playing Iowa and Wisconsin in 2012, which covered a big chunk of its $3.3 million budget.

It may not be fun getting blown out in front of tens of thousands of people, but many schools can't afford not to play these types of games.

A 2013 report from the NCAA revealed only 20 of the 123 FBS schools saw their athletic department turn a profit. And football is one of very few sports that can draw enough fans to pull in any significant revenue.

It seems if you want to play football at a smaller school, you'll just have to endure some big defeats.

This video includes images from Getty Images.

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U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff waves to a crowd of supporters during his "Rally For Our Republic" event on Saturday, July 12, 2025, inside the Kehoe Iron Works building at Trustees Garden in Savannah. During his speech, Ossoff said, "What’s happening to our country right now should chill us to the bone." (Sarah Peacock for the AJC)

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