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The Air Force Falcons football team is heading back to the Big House to face the Michigan Wolverines on Sept. 16, 2017. These two teams last played at Ann Arbor, Mich., in 2012 where Michigan won easily. This game the Falcons will receiver a school record $1.3 million for this one time game, and this amount is $500,000 more than Air Force earned last time around.
A home-and-home would be nice but that is not likely for Michigan and Air Force athletic director Hans Mueh pretty much knew that. This game against the Wolverines was all about the bottom line:
"It was always going to be a money game," Mueh said. "It would have been neat to have a home-and-home, but to be honest with you between sequestration ... and everything else, we need to look at that every once a while to bring some much-needed revenue into this department to sustain what we're trying to do."
The deal between Michigan also could include a road trip for the two basketball teams to meet up, in Michigan of course. If a basketball game can be agreed to then Air Force would net another $100,000. The decision on the basketball game belongs to Air Force head coach Dave Pilipovich, he is a former assistant coach at Michigan.
Adding Michigan is good for the programs bottom line, but the 2015 neutral-site contest between Notre Dame is close to not happening. Air Force and Notre Dame agreed to a four-game series with two games in South Bend, Ind., one at Air Force and a final neutral site game for 2015. The location of the 2015 game was never finalized but Denver and Dallas were the likely destination.
The reason for this game to be canned is because of Notre Dame's five-game scheduling agreement with the ACC. Mueh is hopeful that the game could still take place in 2015, or even down the road. He will meed with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick to discuss some options.