SERVING SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI SINCE 1927 • WWW.STUDENTPRINTZ.COM • AUGUST 28, 2019 | VOLUME 105 | ISSUE 01
ROAD TO RECOVERY PG 4
USM GAMEDAY FASHION PG 5
MORE MISSY ELLIOTT PG 6
S S I M N R E H SOUT L L A B Y E N O M S PLAY
MAKAYLA PUCKETT SPORTS EDITOR
The Southern Miss football team seems to face a team or two on the road from a Power Five conference, usually from the vaunted Southeastern Conference. This year will be no exception as they will play at Alabama and Mississippi State. Sometimes the Eagles win, but most of the time they get demolished. What is the purpose of these matchups? The answer is simple: money. Southern Miss will receive a payday of $1.2 million for playing at Mississippi State and $1.85 million for playing Alabama. “Each year we are
going to play a guarantee game, and really the reason we do that is to balance the budget and to make our budget work and to do the things that we need to do to be competitive with the rest of our schedule and the rest of our year,” said Director of Athletics Jeremy McClain. Although the football team earns the combined $3 million, the revenue will be divided among the entirety of the athletic department. “It goes into our budget bucket. It’s hard to say this dollar goes in and it’s assigned here, but it all goes into one place,” McClain said. Power five conferences comprised of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), Pacific 12, Big 12, Big 10 and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) schedule teams in Group Five conferences
which includes Conference USA (C-USA), Sunbelt, Mountain West, Mid-American and American Athletic Conference (AAC) during non-conference play in hopes of adding another “W” to their record. In exchange for a tough opponent, Group Five teams receive large payouts. These types of games are known as guarantee games, which essentially means a Group Five team is guaranteed money for a guaranteed loss. However, fans of Power Five teams call them “cupcake” games because they’re expected to win. While Southern Miss is not the only C-USA team to participate in guarantee games this season, they are the only team to have two in one season. The Charlotte Observer reports that the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte will receive $1 million for a game at Clemson. The University of Alabama at Birmingham will see a $1.5 million increase in revenue for a game at Tennessee, according to Volswire. Senior finance major Josh Hodges understands the benefit of guarantee games. “I knew we received money for playing Power Five teams,” Hodges said. “I’m totally fine with it. I think it encourages us [Southern Miss] to play high-quality competition while giving us the opportunity to show how good we really are.”
CONTINUED | PG 2