- September 7th, 2017, 7:52 pm
#536274
PilotOnline.com wrote:C-USA rejected Liberty University's generous offer to join the league ... but the Flames ended up as the big winnersThis little nugget seems over the top but in line with rumors that were floating around a year or so ago ...
Sep 7, 2017
Liberty's football stadium with the new, $29.1 million indoor workout facility to the left and a $3 million out track to the right and the school's new $20 million baseball stadium at the bottom right.
Steve Helber | AP Photo
By Harry Minium
The Virginian-Pilot
harry.minium@pilotonline.com
LYNCHBURG Since Liberty University announced in 2012 its plan to move to the Football Bowl Subdivision, officials worked diligently to find a conference, any conference, willing to accept the Flames.
The NCAA requires a Football Championship Subdivision school to join an FBS league to move . Liberty officials intensely lobbied the two leagues that made geographic sense – Conference USA and the Sun Belt – with no luck.
Liberty even offered to open its checkbook. Sources told me that in 2016, Liberty offered Conference USA millions of dollars more than the usual $2 million admission fee for an invitation.
How many millions more? One source pegged the offer at $24 million. The offer coincidentally came at about the same time C-USA was learning its TV revenue would soon crater, going from paying $1.1 million per school annually to about $200,000.Click Here for Full Story