Louisville leads men's basketball programs in cost of buy game losses

Louisville agreed to pay Bellarmine, Wright State and Appalachian State $85,000 each as a men’s basketball game guarantee in exchange for the trio of schools traveling to face the Cardinals inside the KCF Yum! Center. Louisville lost each game amid its 0-9 start to the season.

These games, which are often referred to as guarantee games or “buy games,” help fund mid or low-major programs, if not their athletic departments at large.

Based on an analysis of nearly 600 publicly available contracts, obtained by On3 through public records requests, Louisville’s men’s basketball program is responsible for losing buy games with the greatest associated guarantees of any school in the country this season.

When factoring in Louisville’s home loss to Lipscomb, which also came with an $85,000 guarantee, the Cardinals lost regular-season buy games in which their athletic department paid those four opponents a total of $340,000.

For the schools that agree to make the payments, buy games allow programs to build their respective non-conference schedule as they desire, which can include NCAA tournament aspirations and season-ticket package considerations. Single-game guarantees can reach $100,000 or more from schools such as Arkansas, Gonzaga, Marquette, Michigan State, Texas and Texas Tech.

These guarantees are paid regardless of outcome. However, through a financial lens, they could be used to evaluate a program’s non-conference performance.

Louisville’s $340,000 total in guarantees paid in buy games it lost eclipsed the $310,000 in game guarantees that Georgia spent on buy games it lost in the 2021-22 season and Nebraska‘s $300,000 mark in the 2019-20 season.

Methodology for calculating buy game expenses

On3 received non-conference game and tournament contracts from 119 of the 363 Division I men’s basketball programs. Private institutions are exempt from public records laws, but game contracts for matchups between a public school and private school can provide a window into how much the latter spends on game guarantees.

On3’s buy game database includes exhibition and regular-season, non-conference games in which the game contract details exactly how much one school agreed to pay another. Guarantee payments are often made through third-party event organizers, which can retain a portion of the guarantee as revenue, so these games weren’t included it was unclear how much money one school received.

Due to private schools and some state laws that limit public records requests only to residents, this database isn’t an exhaustive list of non-conference games from this season.

In multi-team events (MTEs) where one school paid another a guarantee in exchange for playing multiple games, only games between the host school and the visiting school were included. The total guarantee was divided by the number of games in the event and applied to the single game between the host and visitor.

Schools the paid the most in buy games later lost

Louisville isn’t alone in having spent six figures on men’s basketball game guarantees for games that the team ultimately lost. Based on the game contracts obtained by On3, here are the five schools that spent the most on game guarantees for games in which its program lost.

1. Louisville: $340,000
2. California: $245,000
3. Oregon: $190,000
4. Florida State: $175,000
5. USF: $165,000

It’s worth noting that Cal also lost at home to Southern in the Emerald Coast Classic, although the event was organized through a third party, which added an intermediary in the guarantee payment process.

Schools that received the most in buy games later won

Mid and low-major programs that spend much of the first two months of the season on the road have more opportunities to win buy games. In the 528 regular-season, non-conference games analyzed, the school that received the guarantee won 57 times, or nearly 11 percent of the time.

Wining multiple guarantee games in the same season will put a program in an exclusive class.

Here are the five programs with that won the non-conference games that were associated with the greatest combined game guarantees, among the games analyzed by On3.

1. Stetson: $170,000
2. Texas State: $165,000
3. Alcorn State: $118,000
4. Sam Houston: $100,000
5. Four schools tied at $95,000

Stetson’s mark bests UC Davis‘ total of $160,000 in the 2021-22 season. However, it lags in comparison to UC Riverside‘s $265,000 total from the 2019-20 season, when it won at Nebraska, Fresno State and San Jose State.

Here you can view the complete, men’s basketball buy game database from the 2022-23 season.