Pros and Cons to a Cap of One "Buy Game" a Year in College Football

By Alec Nederveld

That start of the College Football season after months of offseason is always exciting. But what isn't is many of the early season matchups. The first couple weeks are filled with buy games (sometimes referred to as guarantee games) where one team pays another to come and play. This is a trend that started with Power 4 schools scheduling Group of Five and FCS schools and has only grown over the years. Even Division 3 colleges now pay to host NAIA schools.

These games are scheduled with the expectation of a home team blowout. The home team doesn't care about the costs, they make up the money from the tickets sold and getting the win. The visiting team meanwhile needs the money which goes right back into the program for facility improvements, paying coaches, etc.

It's a win-win for both schools, but not for the spectators. Outside of fans of the programs, who cares about Ohio State vs. Akron, Western Michigan, and Marshall? Ohio State is one of many notable programs who's nonconference schedule is mostly/entirely made up of buy games.

The trend of buy games doesn't look to be going anywhere. Unless a higher power intervenes. But in turn, would that cause more harm than good? Let's examen the pros and cons of both.

Pro: More Power Four schools playing at Group of Five stadiums

It's always entertaining to see a Group of Five school host a Power Four foe. And it leads to some great games too. Just last year, Wyoming knocked off Texas Tech in double-overtime to start the two teams' seasons. Additionally, Rice beat Houston, UNLV beat Vanderbilt, and Ohio beat Iowa State.

Games would be more competitive too. Home-field advantage is a huge deal in College Football and that's only extrapolated early in the year (when most non-conference games take place) and in an unfamiliar town and stadium. On average, the betting lines change by about three points based on the home stadium which would only lead to more upsets.

Further, Group of Five schools would make a much bigger deal of hosting a Power Four school than vice versa. Some may even call it their Super Bowl, but guess what? A lot of people watch the Super Bowl.

If nothing changes, we'd lose games like this in the future. The ACC, a conference that has seven teams traveling to G5s in 2024 is looking to remove all G5 road games in the future . Conference commissioner Jim Phillips is to blame for the recent cancellation of an NC State road game to App State, being replaced by playing conference foe Virginia in a non-conference game. I think everybody would rather see App State on the national spotlight again with the Wolfpack coming to Kidd-Brewer Stadium.

Con: Financials For Small Schools

Athletic departments outside the top schools in the country lose money. Buy games are one of the ways smaller school athletic departments and balance the books.

For example, in 2022, Kent State earned $5.2 million for playing Washington, Oklahoma, and Georgia in their non-conference schedule. With a $25 million athletic budget, Kent State earned nearly 21% by playing three football games . Partially because of these renovations, the university was able to improve their softball, gymnastics , and indoor track facilities . How much of this gets done without those three buy games?

While yes, Kent State hosting Washington, Oklahoma, or Georgia would make much more money in ticket sales than any other game on their schedule, it wouldn't be more than the $1.5 million+ received from traveling to these games. With Buy Games reaching nearly $2 million on the high end, there's no way for a G5 team to make the money back.

Pros: More Rivalry Games

Historic rivalry games are being replaced by much less exciting buy games. The University of Houston chose to cancel the Bayou Bucket rivalry in 2026 and 2027 with Rice in favor of a matchup with Prarie View A&M. The two universities have played 45 times, including consecutively from 1971-1995 when both schools were in the Southwest Conference, and are just five miles apart.

This isn't an isolated incident. Miami (OH) and Cincinnati have played 127 times - behind only North Carolina/Virginia, Georgia/Auburn, Wisconsin/Minnesota and amazingly are tied 60-60-7 all-time. From 1909 onward, the rivalry had only been interrupted by World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic. But as Cincinnati's football program gained prestige, they got greedy with scheduling.

A contract in 2017 extending the rivalry to 2029 changed the format and the location of games. The days of alternating between Yager and Nippert Stadium each year were gone, as the next 13 games in the rivalry would feature five games at Miami and Cincinnati, with three more at Paycor Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Surprisingly, Miami canceled their home games with Cincinnati first , likely to get more money from buy games, before Cincinnati cancelled their games as well. The only game left on the schedule after this year is the 2026 game at Paycor Stadium. Miami will play at Wisconsin and Rutgers in 2025, at Pittsburgh in 2026, and at Purdue in 2027.

In the past decade, Miami had played about one buy game a year. If the NCAA limited buy games, we would likely still see the Ohio teams playing for the Victory Bell. It's another rivalry lost to the changing ways of College Football, but one that didn't have to go.

Con: Logistics

There's a reason why some College Football Stadiums can hold an excess of 100,000 fans. The demand is there from the biggest fanbases in the country. The demand for Group of Five teams is not, leading to stadiums that are typically around 30,000 in capacity. As we commonly see with SEC teams traveling to Vanderbilt, a small stadium plus a big fanbase leads to a takeover and expensive tickets.

Past seating capacities, G5 stadiums have worse amenities: less luxury boxes, smaller video boards, etc. Depending on the team, it could also be difficult to travel to. This doesn't apply to all G5 stadiums, some like Snapdragon Stadium (San Diego State) and Protective Stadium (UAB) were recently constructed. Other programs, such as UNLV (Allegiant Stadium) and South Florida (Raymond James Stadium) share a home with an NFL team. All four of those stadiums are in large cities as well.

It would be cool to preserve more rivalries and see more power conference schools play at smaller schools, but in all honesty, this would never happen. It makes too much sense (and money) for schools to play multiple buy games a year and everybody in athletic departments seems to be happy. As fans, we can dream, can't we?