Big losses mean big payouts for smaller college football programs

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.