Cha-ching! Grizzlies get $450,000 pay day
Money talks in college football, and the Oregon Ducks are speaking the Montana Grizzlies' language.
The Griz revised their 2005 football schedule - again - and dumped a Sept. 10 home game versus Central Washington in favor of a road game in Eugene, Ore., and the accompanying $450,000 payout.
Late last year, Montana paid Hofstra a $50,000 buyout to break a contract calling for the Griz to visit Hempstead, N.Y., and replaced it with a home date against Division II Central Washington.
At the time, UM athletic director Don Read said he wanted to avoid the $125,000 travel expense for an athletic department still saddled with a nearly $1 million deficit that came to light about a year ago.
Read, who was unavailable for comment Monday, was the head coach at Oregon from 1974-76. When he accepted the Montana AD position, he contacted Ducks athletic director Bill Moos about the possibility of scheduling a game between the two schools.
Moos, who held the AD job at Montana in the early 90s when Read was the Griz head football coach, suddenly found himself in need of an opponent last week after Indiana and UTEP backed out of deals.
"We felt we had UTEP secured for an early September game," Moos said during a conference call with reporters Monday night.
"(UTEP coach) Mike Price called me a week or 10 days ago and said they would rather back out of that because they're going into Conference USA and wanted to get off to a good start. Traveling to Oregon was going to cause them concern early in the year."
This came on the heels of Indiana breaking its contract to play the Ducks in Bloomington, Ind. Oregon managed to hook up with Houston for a nationally televised game to start the season, but still needed an opponent for Sept. 10.
"Don Read and I had talked after he assumed those (AD) duties of the prospect of a matchup with Oregon and Montana," Moos said. "Don is a dear, dear fiend, we worked at Montana for years, and I said in the right situation, Montana would be a great opponent for us.
"Not only do they have a great program, they have a tremendous fan base that travels very well.
"At this point in the year, I felt that this was an excellent option."
Under the agreement, Oregon will pay the $50,000 buyout to Central Washington to get the Griz out of that game, plus another $400,000 to the Montana.
"Don had a dilemma because he had that date filled," Moos said. "I told him we would take care of that here.
"That is a good payday for any opponent, but we feel we can make that up taking into consideration Montana could bring in excess of 3,000 fans. That's a revenue source of over $100,000 for us."
The payout to Montana is the same as what Oregon was willing to pay UTEP, and Moos is hopeful the Grizzlies' traveling fans will ensure a 37th consecutive sellout at 54,000-seat Autzen Stadium.
The game will be the first meeting between Montana and Oregon since 1993 when the Ducks came away with a 35-30 win in Eugene.
"We're really excited to host a great team like Montana and its wonderful fans," Moos said. "The very good friendship I have with Don … I would certainly want to have a game like this."
The Griz are 0-7-1 all-time versus Oregon. Montana opens the 2005 season hosting Division II Fort Lewis College on Sept. 3.
2005 Montana Football Schedule
All times Mountain
Sept. 3 Fort Lewis College 1 p.m.
10 at Oregon 1:30
17 South Dakota State 1 p.m.
Oct. 1 Weber State (Homecoming) 1 p.m.
8 at Idaho State TBA
15 Eastern Washington 1 p.m.
22 Cal Poly 1 p.m.
29 Portland State 1 p.m.
Nov. 5 at Northern Arizona TBA
12 at Sacramento State TBA
19 at Montana State Noon