Report: Alabama Spent $3.4 Million For BCS Title Game
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – While it's tough to get a handle on exactly how much money a Super Bowl brings into South Florida, some new numbers from the University of Alabama did shed some light on how much it cost to bring a team to the BCS National Championship Game.
According to AL.com, Alabama spent $3.4 million on the seven-day trip to Miami for the BCS title game. All total, Alabama brought a contingent of 881 people to Miami this year including band and team members along with countless other staff.
Alabama spent the majority of the money on team/staff meals and lodging. The University spent $896,749 on the teams meals and hotel rooms at the Fontainebleau, according to AL.com. An official party of 84 people totaled $234,290 in transportation, meals, and lodging costs.
Alabama's band, nicknamed "The Million Dollar Band," brought 457 members who cost the school $284,003. In addition, the school had to eat 2,003 of its 17,040 ticket allotment which translated to a loss of $751,380 in unsold tickets, according to AL.com.
Notre Dame hasn't released its bowl costs because it's a private institution. However, assuming the Fighting Irish spent as much on the game as Alabama, then the game generated nearly $7 million from just the two teams involved.
Assuming South Florida could continue to bring in the National Championship game roughly every four years under the new four-team playoff system through 2025, the area would see four more championship games.
That would generate approximately $28 million from just the schools in the game, in 2013 dollars. Combining that with the estimates of the economic impact from the Super Bowls in 1999 and 2007 would generate approximately $814 million of economic impact for South Florida, not taking into account the spending of regular fans of the college football championship games.
It's an oversimplistic calculation, but does show that the games do bring in a significant chunk of money for South Florida.
