2 hours ago, Sycamores57 said:

When I say money, I mean money for the schools. They split the gate. Why would any team turn that down? Teams # 3 & 4 in that district aren’t going to turn that down.

2 hours ago, cricketbird said:

I may be wrong, but I think the home team has to give more of the gate to the away team for travel expenses, at least in the playoffs. That’s what I was told last week anyway. Not sure if that is true.

58 minutes ago, Sycamores57 said:

I’m not 100% how it works as far as “split”. I just know that both teams get a chuck of the pie. Official pay and travel expenses definitely have to factored in. I also know that the ticket prices for playoff games go up.

Here's what the KHSAA says in their 2025-2026 Fall Tournament & Championship Instructions. The sub-section for the 2025 State Football Playoffs - Rounds 1-4 begins on page 38 of the attached link, and I took the quote, below, from that sub-section:

AGREEMENT ON FINANCES AND GAME PROCEEDS

The schools shall reach agreement on the division of game proceeds, including the method of dividing net proceeds. Per the Constitution of the Association, the proceeds of all playoff games through the third round shall reain with the schools. Per Board of Control action and unless otherwise altered, the proceeds of all fourth round games shall remain with the schools.

If no other agreement is reached, and a required facility rental fee is to be paid, the home team shall take the cost of rental from its share of proceeds after the division of proceeds and payment of approved expenses.

There are two common methods of dividing the proceeds from playoff games:

METHOD 1:

• The first and more commonly used method is to simply split the gate receipts after the payment of the trophy bill and the cost of officials.

• In addition, for the fourth round, many schools agree to follow a fixed rate mileage allowance for the traveling team prior to making this division of the gate or a lodging allowance due to cross-state travel.

• This method of dividing proceeds encourages the visiting team to minimize travel expenses and the home team to control game costs and eliminates the perception of inflated costs by either the traveling team or home management.

METHOD 2:

• The second method is a split of the gate after agreed expenses, which would involve the following:
     o Allowing for the cost of the trophies and the game officials.
     o Determining and agreeing in advance on the expenses of the home team for staging the game,
        including charges for police and security, ticket sellers and takers, P.A. announcer, dressing
        room attendants, parking, ushers, statistics, etc.
     o Determining and agreeing in advance on the expense allowance for the visiting team for
        mileage, meals and lodging if applicable. If no other agreement on mileage or visiting team
        travel can be reached, using the state expense allowance is recommended ($5 per meal per
        player, $2 per mile for travel).

• Split the balance between the two teams after payment for the items listed above.


If no agreement exists in advance, the Method 1, as detailed above, shall govern the finances.

All expenses not agreed to by the two schools PRIOR to the game will not be allowed to be included prior to the division of net proceeds.

On 11/8/2025 at 4:35 PM, Jumper_Dad said:

How about just allowing everyone a chance to compete for one and let's just see how it plays out.

We allow every team in every other sport to compete for a title, heck we even allow most 2nd round losers to advance in basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball playoffs and probably other sports as well. Why the yearly uproar over football. In my opinion more football is always better than less football. 

To paraphrase from, and conjure my inner, George Carlin - in no other sport do we have "field generals" and compete on a "grid iron" and play in places like "War Memorial Stadium".  

1 hour ago, Sycamores57 said:

I’m not 100% how it works as far as “split”. I just know that both teams get a chuck of the pie. Official pay and travel expenses definitely have to factored in. I also know that the ticket prices for playoff games go up.

After expenses, I'd guess most (but not all) 1st and 2nd round games aren't clearing much money. I doubt the reason we have the current playoff system is due to a few (very few) thousand dollars being split between two schools.

2 hours ago, Jumper_Dad said:

After expenses, I'd guess most (but not all) 1st and 2nd round games aren't clearing much money. I doubt the reason we have the current playoff system is due to a few (very few) thousand dollars being split between two schools.

For a little bit of a "brass tacks" figure on that, Cov Cath played Boyd County in the first round of the playoffs this year. Boyd County brought their team up in two charter buses.

I counted 41 fans in the stand from Boyd County at kickoff, and then a couple dozen more appeared to show up in their stands by halftime. Call it 65 fans. I didn't count on the Cov Cath side of things, but calling it 1000 fans (which is a pretty liberal) on the Cov Cath side, that means 1065 fans paying at the gate. If you assume all fans pay $10 at the gate, that's $10,650 for the gate.

Using the KHSAA's Game Proceeds Method 1 to figure out the way things get split for that game:

Gate: $10,650
Officials Fee: $700 (First round, seven-official crew rate)
Trophy Fee: None

(10650 - 700) ÷ 2 = $4,975 for each team.

Boyd County was taking a 2-1/2 hour bus ride each way with their team. They came in 2 charter buses. I Googled costs on charter buses, and NationalBusCharter.com says requires a minimum of 5-hour rental for hourly charter bus rental or there is a daily rate, plus a per-mile fee. Given the 5 hours of drive time plus the actual time of pre-game and the game, it makes sense that they would go for the daily rate. NationalBusCharter lists daily rates at $1100-$1900 per day, so let's go average there at $1500 for the daily rate. So per bus, that's a base rate of $1500 per day, and then they're paying mileage fees on top of that. NationalBusCharter lists mileage rates at $4.00-$6.20 per mile. Again, let's go average there with at $5.10 per mile. Distance from Boyd County High School to Covington Catholic High School via the AA-Highway is 133 miles, so round-trip is 266 miles.

So for 2 charter buses...

2 x [1500 + (5.10 x 266)]
2 x [1500 + 1356.60]
2 x [2856.60]
$5,713.20

So figuring Boyd County got a $4,975 cut of the gate for the football game, if you put that against the $5,713.20 they paid for their buses to get to the game, that means they ended up $738.20 in the hole.