It may be the case that our deal was $460k after expenses, but that may be the case for all the other deals we're comparing it to as well. We don't know. It looks bad.

IIRC the NDSU contract contained an out if either school jumped to FBS so I think it is void

Cal is paying Wagner $525k. We could have undercut that (if we even needed to) to give Cal a much more attractive opponent that would bring a much larger visiting contingent. More interesting for our fans, probably more competitive, easy trip, etc.

Embrace it fine, but demand a commensurate payout! $400k is a reasonable amount of money from a MWC team; don't accept less than $700k from a rich P4 program like SMU. Cal is playing Wagner this weekend, Stanford is playing Elon this season. Surely we were not in such a bind that $460k from SMU was the best deal we could come up with. Someone was lazy and not considering if this was the best possibility for the program this season.

We got the worst deal, playing an elite FBS team for a low payout in extreme conditions at a fairly distant location. If we're going to settle for such a low payout, let's at least play someone closer we have a better shot at being competitive with.

2028/2029 https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2025/9/1/football-announces-home-and-home-with-north-dakota-state.aspx

More data points that we accepted too little to play in heat at SMU. Seems obvious. Hopefully just one outlier and not a sign of things to come in upcoming seasons.

Sac State paid MVSU $350k last week. We are definitely being underpaid for this trip.

Isn't SMU forgoing all conference media revenue for some period far into the future? I guess they just signed up for the tv deal and did not negotiate themselves any leverage in these situations. ACC wants you in the early window, that's when you play.

NWS going with 101 for Saturday. Why is this game at 1 pm? I would hope SMU would retain some influence over game times for their third tier ACC+ or whatever games. It doesn't need to be early for some national tv window. Sucks for anyone going, including the teams.

Hopefully they play as sloppy as they did last night

Players are going to be rolling back into their dorms at 7 am or so. Not a great way to start your Tuesday.

I'll be in Portland but taking my kid for a long hike instead of schlepping out to Hillsboro for the game in an empty high school stadium. I gave him one last chance to decide if he really wants to go to the game but he said he prefers the hike and then watching on tv.

Is there any particular deal for espn+? Cheapest I see $14 a month for the espn unlimited package. I recall it being cheaper last season

Fortunately for everyone attending, the weather looks perfect - 70s instead of the 90s I feared

As someone who lived in downtown Portland and now visits regularly, I will dispute that downtown is "dangerous" but I guess that depends on what you compare it to. If you are used to urban areas and keep your normal wits about you, you will be fine. I can't imagine the violent crime rate against tourists or normal people going out to dinner is much above zero. Yes your car might get broken into if you park on the street but I don't know if the risk is higher there than other west coast cities. If you are used to quaint suburbs, yes some of the street people can be disturbing but 99.9% of the time they don't pay any attention to you.

Yes all of those. There are a lot of great things, there are also forlorn blocks with tents and sketchy looking characters. It is improving slowly since the depths of the covid abandonment.

Please leave the palm trees in socal. They are ugly, they don't provide any useful shade (which should be a priority everywhere around the stadium), they host rats and they periodically drop big heavy sharp fronds. All bad.

Those equestrian people are nuts. Move on!

The city owns it; it looks like the parent company of the Timbers operates it though. So you'd think/hope the city would figure out a way to have PSU stay there but I guess the actual operator has no such preference and apparently the city doesn't care enough to force it.