There are advantages to being one of the worst football teams in the country. For one, it means the team gets tons of publicity all thanks to the best teams in the country who have kicked their butts once again.
Even though everyone knows about how much the team sucks, with this publicity, comes great amounts of money. That’s because teams like our very own Hurricanes will pay them to play us.
A bad team like Savannah State is apparently worth $375,000, which is how much we paid for the game the weekend of Sept. 21. This underdog received $850,000 last year from Florida State University and Oklahoma State alone just to play. The catch is, teams like Savannah State were never paid to lose, just paid to play.
Why would teams that clearly out-rank others want to play a team at the bottom of the ladder? While it seems that games like these are set up just to improve the ranking of better teams, there may be other reasons involved.
Coaches from these big teams say that rookies that aren’t going to get much play during more important games can finally play against someone closer to their skill level. It also allows for the team to practice and fine tune certain aspects of their game without having to worry about losing. It may even be giving these less-abled teams the chance to play better competition so that next time, they know what it takes to be better.
Or maybe, this is all just a scam to keep the rankings for teams like UM and FSU high. Should this be illegal?