Notre Dame is paying a premium to host UNLV in a few years.
Notre Dame will pay UNLV $1.35 million for the Oct. 22, 2022 game at Notre Dame Stadium, UNLV said in a release earlier this month. It is the highest amount Notre Dame has paid or will pay for a guarantee game on its schedule from 2018 to 2022, and second highest when including the 2024 game versus Northern Illinois.
Notre Dame has paid or will pay the following guarantee sums to these upcoming opponents, according to contracts obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests conducted by BlueandGold.com:
Ball State (2018): $1.1 million
Bowling Green (2019): $1.1 million
Western Michigan (2020): $1.175 million
Toledo (2021): $1 million
Cincinnati (2021): $1.2 million
Marshall (2022): $1.25 million
UNLV (2022): $1.35 million
Northern Illinois (2024): $1.4 million
Compared to other Power Five schools, though, Notre Dame is paying much less to host home games against teams outside that group. Alabama’s payment of $1.7 million to Arkansas State for a 2018 game was believed to be the highest ever sum for a guarantee game, Footballscoop.com reported in 2016, when the contract was finalized.
Georgia has since topped that on multiple occasions. The Bulldogs paid Arkansas State $1.8 million for a 2019 game and will reportedly pay Kent State (2022), UAB (2023) and Massachusetts (2024) $1.9 million each for home games.
Auburn will also pay UMass $1.9 million for a game this fall.
Football Championship Subdivision schools usually collect payments around $400,00 to $500,000 for Power Five guarantee games. Notre Dame is one of three Football Bowl Subdivision programs that has never played an FCS opponent.
The game between Notre Dame and UNLV will be the schools’ first meeting and UNLV’s first football game in the state of Indiana.
“Nothing says college football history more than playing a game at Notre Dame,” UNLV athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois said in a release. “We are looking forward to taking our team and our fans to South Bend for what is sure to be a memorable experience.”
Neither Notre Dame nor a future opponent has announced any guarantee games for 2023.
----
• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @PatrickEngel_, @ToddBurlage and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.
