College Football: Why Liberty is paying $1.32 million for Old Dominion game

Liberty agreed to pay Old Dominion $1.32 million to host a 2018 season opener between the schools. Why might the Flames make such an investment?

Liberty, the evangelical Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell in 1971, is bringing the Flames football team up to the FBS level in two years. The school wanted to face a fellow FBS opponent in its first home game at the highest level of college football. And a recent Virginian-Pilot report revealed just how much the Flames had to spend to make that happen. It is worth digging into whether this was a smart deal by the university.

The Flames have an interesting history in their own right. Liberty’s move through the college ranks fits well into the broader history of transitioning upward within college football. The team began playing in the NAIA two years after the university’s founding. After less than a decade, the Flames moved on to the NCAA and Division II status in 1981. By 1989, Liberty had moved up to Division I-AA.

The school played as an independent for more than two decades in the I-AA ranks. When conference affiliation became paramount even in the FCS, the Flames joined the Big South in 2002. Thus, with a schedule that has featured two FBS teams each of the past three years and at least one FBS opponent every year of the 21st century, the move up another level isn’t entirely ridiculous or hasty.

I originally set out to rip into this contract for the school’s fiscal irresponsibility. But then I read through the PDF of the Athletic Competition Agreement for the 2018 home opener between Liberty and Old Dominion. Rather than ridiculing the sum being spent by the Flames to bring the Monarchs to Lynchburg, I’ve turned around to recognize why this is not such a foolish expenditure. So let’s dive in further to look at three reasons why Liberty chose to make this deal.