The gator will pay 2.5 mil next year. I wish we could have landed the Champs as they will be paying out about 2mil next year. it still looks good for the BE and Libery bowl since the acc is out of that picture.
HOT SPRINGS, VA. -- Although the postseason pecking order and the team payouts still need to be resolved, the ACC will extend its contracts with its current five bowl partners, Commissioner John Swofford said Monday.
Swofford declined to say which other games would be a part of the new postseason lineup from 2006 through 2009, but he is expected to announce this morning the addition of the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., and perhaps one other game, likely the Emerald in San Francisco.
Another possibility is the Independence Bowl, which also has talked with the league, as has the Liberty Bowl. But the latter game "is going to go in a different direction," executive director Steve Ehrhart said Monday.
Swofford said the ACC and its bowl partners still are working out the order of team selection after the Bowl Championship Series takes the ACC title-game winner and perhaps one other team if it is ranked high enough.
Gator Bowl President Rick Catlett, whose game has the first choice after the BCS, wants to keep its position in the order, but the Peach Bowl, which has the third choice, would like to move into that spot, said its president, Gary Stokan.
Complicating matters is the fact that the ACC will hold its championship game in Jacksonville, Fla., the site of the Gator Bowl.
"From a pick standpoint, it does change the dynamics to some degree, because in a perfect world, you'd probably prefer that the championship game loser not go back to the same site," Swofford said.
Another factor could be cash.
Catlett said the Gator's payout would increase from $1.6 million per team last season to $2.5 million beginning in 2006; Stokan said the Peach's paycheck would rise from $2.3 million to "above" $2.4 million per team. The Champs Sports Bowl has increased its payout from $750,000 to about $2 million per team, and the Meineke Car Care and MPC Computers bowls also plan to pay each team more, their directors said.
Last year, the Music City Bowl paid $1.1 million per team, and the BCS will increase its payout from about $16 million per team last season to $17 million in 2006.
"It'll increase,'' Swofford said of the ACC's bowl revenue. "We won't be announcing dollar figures [today], but it will be improved overall beyond what our expansion projections were, which is good, because the same thing was true with the television contracts and the same thing was true with the championship game."
(Staff writer A.J. Carr contributed to this report.)
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