Posted on: Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Cheer up, there's $$ to be made

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Quietly, almost furtively, you suspect, there are a lot of closet Fresno State and Boise State football fans suddenly springing up in the most unlikely places these days, rival Western Athletic Conference campuses.

Forget that blasted blue turf in Boise or things like that screwdriver incident in Fresno, officials at other WAC schools are willing to overlook old grudges and take a rooting interest in the conference's two most dominating teams.

So what if Boise State coach Dan Hawkins can roll up the points or Fresno State coach Pat Hill sometimes seems to stalk the sidelines like a madman? People who would ordinarily wish a rash of turnovers and penalties on those teams are now seeing fit to pull for them on this and a lot of future Saturdays.

WAC pride and conference solidarity at work?

No, the prospect of hefty dollar signs.

This is a purely financial attraction, the depth of which figures to grow by the week now that Fresno State (No. 19) and Boise State (No. 23) are nationally ranked.

With the Bulldogs having vanquished their marquee non-conference opponents already and Boise State needing to get by Brigham Young out of conference, there are visions of a Bowl Championship Series payout to the tune of $2 million each per eligible WAC member, if one of them runs the table.

And, nothing says financial windfall like a lucrative BCS berth, which pays $13 million to $15 million per participating team this season.

Let's say Fresno State finishes 11-0 and ends up in the Fiesta Bowl. Under the WAC's payout formula, the conference office said the Bulldogs would get the first $1 million off the top, then the membership would divide the remaining $12 million.

However, since Rice, Southern Methodist, Texas-El Paso and Tulsa are leaving the WAC on June 30, 2005, and are thus ineligible for revenue sharing, the $12 million would be split among the remaining six members: Boise, Fresno, Hawai'i, Louisiana Tech, Nevada and San Jose State.

In UH's case, that would be a $2 million check, an amount worth roughly 10 percent of the school's entire annual athletic budget — enough to bail out the accrued red ink and loan obligations of the last two years. At many WAC schools, $2 million is half — or more — what the football team brings in during an entire season.

But before anybody starts writing checks, some considerable hurdles remain. First, either Boise or Fresno, who meet Oct. 23, have to emerge from the conference season unbeaten. Then, as a non-BCS conference member, they have to continue to climb in the polls, finishing in the BCS's top six to be guaranteed a berth but the top 12 to be "considered."

Still, even the vision of a $2 million payday per school is enough to, as one official put it, "make Fresno and Boise fans of us all right now."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.