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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/trailrunn on 2026-02-17 01:01:42+00:00.

Per the below quote from Sac State’s president, Sac State is planning to “primarily“ fund their advancement to FBS with game guarantees.

“All of this is being primarily paid for by game guarantees. As an FBS school, we can get $1 million to $1.5 million per game.

statehornet.com/…/sacramento-state-football-mid-a…

However, this makes no financial sense. First of all, let’s talk about the costs they’ve agreed to

  • $18 million to MAC

  • $5 million to NCAA for FBS Advancement

  • All travel for away teams (let’s assume $500k/game at four games a year) = $10 million over 5 years

  • Immediate upgrades to Hornet Stadium (let’s assume $5 million total)

  • All conference disbursements. In 2022, the Big Sky gave Sac State about $450k in disbursements. To keep the numbers clean, let’s assume $200k of that is for football so 1 million over 5 years.

TOTAL = $39 million over 5 years or 7.8 million a year

The MAC has 8 conference games, let’s assume they don’t go to 9 which is the trend amongst FBS conferences. So, they have 4 available games a year to make back these costs.

Let’s also completely disregard any game guarantees Sac State would/already will receive at the FCS level. For example, Oregon State is paying them $600k for a game in 2029 but we’ll forget about that.

So, utilizing the 4 remaining games each year, Sac State would need to bring in almost 2 million a game to fund these costs with game guarantees. As far as I can tell, no P4 team has ever paid 2 million dollars for a game guarantee (record is 1.9 million for WKU @ Auburn) , but we’ll assume Sac State is such a lucrative program that they found them. That once again assumes the following -

  • Sac State is playing 4 away guarantee games, meaning they’ll only have 4 home games and hence lose 1/3 of their home game revenue, but we’ll disregard that.

  • Sac State is likely starting the season 0-4 having played P4 programs to start the season. This is not a way to drum up interest and sell tickets for your 4 home games.

  • Sac State is finding 4 guarantee games despite the new 10 game P4 requirements in the P4 leagues limiting the number of guarantee games.

  • Sac State is not purchasing any guarantee games themselves versus their rivals UC Davis or bringing in “bigger“ names like Fresno State or Nevada to drum up ticket sales.

  • Not accounting for additional costs in a new stadium which is apparently still happening.

Let‘s even take a “reasonable” approach of the following -

  • Sac State books two guarantee games at $2 million total a year total.

  • Sac State spends $500k on guarantee games versus an FBS team.

  • Sac State increases football revenues from $4 to $6 million per year with the FBS competition. This means they’re making about as much money as San Jose State. SJSU’s revenue includes guarantees so technically we’re doubling up but whatever it doesn’t work anyways.

Hence, they’re generating about $3.5 million / year in additional revenue or almost $20 million short over the span of 5 years.

The thought of course is that they needed an escape hatch to FBS. Now that they have it, it’s easier to be flexible from here. For a publicly funded university already facing budget issues though, it seems incredibly irresponsible to take this risk when the justified funding mechanism is so easily debunked.

You could also hope that the donors step up, however with the new stadium, new downtown campus, big NIL expenditures, and flashy coach hires, it seems like their donors will too end up overcommitted.

The MAC better hope their check clears!