An NCAA rule change means there will be more football games for fans to watch this season — and more money in colleges’ coffers.

Thanks to a rule going into effect this year, 12-game seasons will now be a yearly ritual in Division I-A football. And that doesn’t count league championship games and bowls.

The quest for more money was a big reason the 12th game has been added.

“Everybody will realize additional revenue from it,” Florida State athletic director Dave Hart said. “It was driven by finances.”

Home football games help I-A athletic departments pay their bills. Virginia Tech will reap $2 million in gross revenue for each home game this year, including money from ticket sales, concessions and parking. Virginia grosses $1.3 to $1.7 million per home game.

Some colleges fare even better. Southern California reaps up to $5 million from a home game.

Tech was in favor of adding a 12th game, said athletic director Jim Weaver.

“The 12th game creates more revenue, and that helps athletic directors in terms of working with their budgetary issues,” Weaver said.

Greater injury risk?

Not everyone likes saying bye-bye to a bye week. One reason Hart dislikes the 12th game is because players lose one of their chances to have a Saturday off to recuperate.

“In the compacted season, I do worry about trying to play 12 games in a 13-week window,” Hart said. “It’s pretty tough if you have but one open date in the season for kids to recover.”

Tech coach Frank Beamer said he would rather keep the schedule at 11 games. He likes it when the Hokies are off the Saturday before a Thursday night game. That will still happen before Tech’s Thursday night game with Boston College, but Tech will play Southern Mississippi the Saturday before it faces Clemson.

“That’s the worst part about it,” Beamer said. “Now you may not get that week off before a Thursday night game. … As fast as these people are and as hard as the collisions are, I think that recovery time is pretty important.”

Beamer and Weaver would like the NCAA to eliminate redshirting and let players have five years of eligibility. That would give coaches, who currently redshirt some of their freshmen, more bodies to offset the increased risk of injury that comes with an extra game.

“If you had freshmen that could play [on] some of your special teams … then I think the 12th game wouldn’t be as hard on us,” Beamer said.

Beamer’s counterpart at Virginia is all for the 12th game, though.

“I like to play games,” UVa coach Al Groh said. “I’d rather play the game than have an off week.”

Logistical concerns

UVa athletic director Craig Littlepage considers the 12th game “a mixed bag.” He and other athletic directors noted that games have been postponed in recent years because of hurricanes and the Sept. 11 attacks, so they fret that the loss of an open date will take away the opportunity for a makeup game.

“I understand the revenue benefits of the additional game,” Littlepage said. “But the benefits of that additional game do come at a risk of compressing the schedule and not having as much flexibility for … games that due to any number of circumstances might have to be moved around the schedule.”

“In our area of the country, with … the postponement of games due to hurricanes, it can create a problem,” Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman said.

The rule change was passed last year. Wellman and the ACC’s two other representatives cast the only negative votes when the Division I Management Council, which is comprised mainly of athletic administrators, backed the 12th game.

The final decision rested with the school presidents who comprise the Division I Board of Directors. The only two negative votes in I-A were by the ACC and Conference USA representatives. The rule wasn’t adopted in I-AA.

Hart, an advocate of having a playoff system in I-A, is annoyed that college presidents are against having I-A playoffs but agreed to a 12th game.

“We look like we’re kind of talking out of both sides of our mouth a little bit when we say we don’t want to extend our season and yet” add a 12th game, Hart said.

Wellman said advocates of a 12th game not only liked the chance for more revenue but also felt it would help maintain nonleague rivalries and would provide another game to help show who deserves to play in bowls and Bowl Championship Series championship games.

Teams will only have to go 6-6 to qualify for bowl consideration. Each year, they can count one win over a I-AA foe toward the six wins needed.

There were 12-game seasons in 2002 and 2003, but that was because of a rule that permitted 12-game seasons in years when there were 14 Saturdays from the opening weekend through November. That rule still applies in I-AA.

Buying home games

With the big bucks that a home game brings, many schools jumped at the chance to add another home game. Virginia Tech will have eight home games this year, up from the usual six. So will fellow ACC members Florida State and Clemson. Seven other ACC schools will have seven home games.

Most of the $2 million that Tech reaps for a home game will turn into profit. Tech has operational expenses of $182,000 per game. Tech also pays anywhere from $150,000 to $500,000 to visiting teams as a game guarantee, with the bigger paydays going to teams that won’t get a visit from Tech in return.

Three of Tech’s four nonleague games this year are such “buy” games, with teams visiting Blacksburg in a one-shot deal — Southern Mississippi, Kent State and I-AA Northeastern. Cincinnati is visiting Tech as part of a home-and-home series.

Don’t expect Tech to have eight home games every year, said Weaver. Tech will have six or seven home games in future seasons.

“I’d love to have seven [every year], but it’s harder to get 'buy’ teams,” Weaver said. “And in order to play some quality people, you’ve got to go to their place.”

Duke took the opportunity for a 12th game to schedule a home-and-home series with Alabama. But most schools saw the 12th game as a chance to buy a home game against a weak foe.

“People in general are not adding really good, intersectional, television-inventory-type games,” Hart said. “The logic for that … is if you can’t have an open date, you’ll have to do the next best thing and that is try to schedule one” by playing a weak team.

Virginia will have six home games this year; Littlepage said that is because both Pittsburgh and East Carolina really wanted to be home this year in their home-and-home series with the Cavaliers. Littlepage said UVa might have seven or eight home games in future seasons, though.

The revenue from home football games is used to help fund a school’s entire athletic department, not just the football program.

“We’re just trying to grow our business and get better across the board,” Weaver said.

The $2 million that Tech grosses per home game doesn’t even count the money from Lane Stadium’s luxury suites and club-seat surcharges, which goes to pay down the debt on the expansion projects. The suite and surcharge money is paid by fans on an annual basis regardless of how many home games there are in a season.

This year, though, there won’t be any money paid by those with suites and club seats on the west side. Tech has waived those charges this season because fans spent $3.4 million for them last season but didn’t get what they paid for because of construction delays.

Some people are happy with the 12th game simply because it’s another opportunity to play football.

“We live for games, so the more the merrier,” Tech QB Sean Glennon said.