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Welcome back everyone! I had some fun with the MLB pasta policy recently but time we’re going to get a little bit into the weeds of our main love, college football. As Commish, I am passing the baton to Big Sky Brigit here with some fun research on this one.
A few months ago, we got numbers on payments from FBS teams to FCS teams. A little light bulb went off and I decided now was a great time to make use of my Sociology degree and do some breakdowns on the numbers. This will be an ongoing series until I run out of stuff to talk about.
Today, let’s look at who’s getting paid the most to play games against FBS teams in the upcoming 2026 season. All my numbers come from this article by Hero Sports.
First, the top 10 payouts for FCS teams:
No big surprise that an SEC team is paying out the most for this buy game. Although it is pretty funny that LSU did just get the AD from McNeese State,
What got the wheels turning for me here was that the Big Sky has three (3) teams in the top 10 for payouts: Weber State, Montana, and Idaho. Reader, this is what literary types call “foreshadowing.”
But let’s keep going.
Who’s getting paid the least for their buy game? Your bottom 10:
No major surprises here, either.
You may see lots of Sun Belt down here at the bottom for payouts and think they’ll be in the bottom of the table for FBS conference payouts. Tune in next time for a surprise!
Now that we have an idea of who is where, let’s get into the meat and potatoes, starting with the full numbers for payouts to FCS teams from FBS teams:
As I suspected, the Big Sky is getting paid above and beyond the next conference, the Missouri Valley. Now you may be thinking to yourself, astute reader, that a big powerhouse school just moved out of the Missouri Valley Conference into FBS and wondering if there’s been a change over time. Tune in for a later article in this series to find out!
In terms of payouts, those big three payments in the top 10 are really bringing up the average here for the Big Sky. But what we find is that the Big Sky is, on average, higher in our payouts spreadsheet than the team getting paid the most, McNeese in the Southland. On the whole, the team getting paid the least in the Big Sky is Northern Colorado for their game against Wyoming with $400,000. On the whole, that ranks 57th in our spreadsheet.
But let’s look at the totals for the Big Sky.
We have five payouts from the Big 12, four from the Mountain West, two from the Big 10, and one each from the ACC and the newly reformed Pac-12. Our average payout for the Big Sky in 2026 is $510,714.
Let’s see how that compares to the Missouri Valley Conference.
The majority of their games are coming against fair to middlin’ Big 10 teams (five total), with one each against teams from the SEC, Pac-12, Big 12, CUSA, and Mountain West.
What we also find is that the Missouri Valley has a lower lowest payout than the Big Sky ($350,000 for Illinois State against Northern Illinois vs $400,000 for Northern Colorado against Wyoming). That ranks 77th in our spreadsheet, a full 20 places below that Northern Colorado payout.
On the whole, the average for the Missouri Valley in terms of payouts isn’t drastically lower, and it likely wouldn’t even be statistically significantly lower, but those lower payouts do make a difference. Their average payout is $498,500. Again, not drastically less (only a difference of $12,214) but enough that those lower payments do drag it down.
Those three top 10 payments (five in the top 12, as Portland State and Eastern Washington are 11 and 12 on our sheet with payouts of $590,000 and $575,000, respectively) are really making the difference.
What of the rest of the conferences?
Both the floor and the ceiling for the CAA are lower on average, giving them an average payout of $389,545. Most of their payouts also come from conferences that are paying out less overall like the Sun Belt and the MAC.
As we move through the other conferences, we also see a pattern emerge: a volume game. The conferences getting larger payouts are, by and large, sending more teams for buy games, sometimes (as we see above with Maine in the CAA) multiple times a season.
Next in our rankings is the SoCon.
The majority of their payouts are similar to the CAA and coming largely from the SEC, giving them an average payout of $467,500. As a conference, their total payouts are lower than the CAA but their average payout for their buy games is higher. They’re also playing fewer buy games (eight) versus the CAA (11 with 10 teams total).
Will this pattern hold for other conferences? Let’s keep going.
The Southland are playing 10 buy games this coming season, which puts them right in the middle between the CAA and the SoCon. One thing I do want to note that is significant here is the gap between the first and second payout. If you take out that top payment to McNeese from LSU, that’s gonna move them down the rankings. Specifically, their current average payout is $408,000 but if you take out that top payment, that brings them down to $370,000. Also worth nothing is that the gap between first and second in payouts in the Southland is a full 28 places (McNeese is 1st, Nicholls is 29th).
The OVC-Big South is next on our list. They have a higher average payout for their games: their highest payouts are square in the middle between McNeese and Nicholls with two teams in the top 10 and four between McNeese in first and Nicholls at 29th. On average, they’re receiving $488,125 for their buy games.
Next, we see what happens when a conference (the NEC) volume shoots but has a lower floor and ceiling.
Here, the highest overall in the NEC is Wagner with $525,000, 24th overall in the spreadsheet but with LIU, third from the bottom of our spreadsheet at 97th. There’s a wider range here in terms of payouts in combination with volume shooting that brings their average down to $360,000, our lowest average so far. We also see multiple teams playing multiple buy games: Wagner, Bobby Mo, and LIU all have two while Mercyhurst is on another tour (though thankfully not another Ride to Hell) with three.
Four more to go, stick with me.
Here we have the MEAC with 7 buy games with five teams (Howard and Norfolk State (BEHOLD) are playing two each). While their total payouts are lower overall, their average payout is, again, right in the middle at $456,429. They neither need to volume shoot like the Big Sky nor do they need to get paid more overall like the Big Sky to have an average payout that’s only slightly statistically significantly lower overall. They’re also higher on average than the NEC because of their higher payouts overall.
On the whole, we’re seeing lower payouts and lower average payouts as we move down the rankings. Let’s see if that continues.
The Patriot League is also playing 7 buy games like the MEAC but with a lower ceiling, their average payout is only $370,714 even though their floor is exactly the same. Both Norfolk State, Colgate, Lafayette, and Fordham are all getting paid $300,000 for their buy games but there are, as you can see, three teams here getting that as a payout versus just the one in the MEAC.
The UAC is down near the bottom in both our total payouts and our average payouts: their average is $368,333, just slightly below that of the NEC. They also have fewer buy games overall with just six versus 11.
Last one, I promise!
The SWAC are at the bottom of our overall payouts due largely to the fact that they’re also playing the fewest buy games with just four. Their average is quite high thanks almost entirely to that large payment to Florida A&M from Miami which ranks second in overall payouts on our spreadsheet. That brings their average up quite a bit to $510,000.
So what does this tell us about FCS payments overall? For one, it’s not just volume shooting that nets the most for your conference but a higher payout overall. The NEC and the Big Sky are both playing over 10 buy games (11 in the NEC, 14 in the Big Sky) but the Big Sky has a higher payout overall with both a higher floor and ceiling.
Second, we see the benefits of investing in your FCS conference. Not just playing buy games for the sake of playing them but then investing that money back in your conference is huge for raising both your average and the amount you’re getting paid overall. We also see how powerhouse conferences like the MVFC and now the Big Sky wield both their name recognition, prestige, and power in FCS to net more for their conferences.
We also see how just one or two schools that get paid more overall can benefit the conference as a whole, as well. The huge payments to McNeese and Florida A&M bring up the averages of their conferences significantly. The Southland is playing 10 buy games with nine teams (Nicholls has two) so they seem to be threading that needle between volume shooting and higher payouts to the benefit of their conference overall.
These are just my initial observations from looking at the numbers and doing simple calculations. We’ll get more into changes over time and who is paying out the most in FBS in future breakdowns.
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