Bowl games payouts are very misleading. Much of the actual $$ depends upon the way the conference splits the monies. Many teams lose a fortune going to a bowl even after what looks like a large payout. Taking the squad and staff, VIPs, band etc...and flying to a location and staying for a week and being forced to buy X amount of tickets as a guarantee can get costly. Many schools have lost a lot of money but didn’t mind as they deemed it good advertising for the school and as a recruiting tool. Some conferences like the MAC will pool the money and subsidize the travel and ticket requirements so no team loses their shirt on the deal. Leagues like that also sell out to ESPN for whatever $$$ they can get ($10mil/year) so we see them playing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the cold rainy October/November nights with nobody in the stands because out of town fans/alumni don’t want to have to take 2 days off from work to travel. There’s more to jumping up to FBS is more than you think.

An old article but the gist is the same:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/is-the-we..._b_2421520