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Fresno State is not flowing with cash and that is the case with most non-BCS conferences, so postponing, and possibly canceling, their road game against Colorado has huge financial impact toward the Bulldogs. Colorado was scheduled to pay Fresno State $250,000 for the game and then also offset some of the travel costs plus other revenue from the game would be shared with Fresno State. Also, some of the travel expenses that Fresno State already spent are likely unrecoverable.
The yearly athletic budget for Fresno State is just $26 million and the school needs every penny they can get, but compared to Colorado who gets about that much just from the Pac-12 television deal alone.
There has been talk about rescheduling the game, but the dates don't add up right now since neither school has the same bye week. As of now Dec. 7 is an option but that is the date of each leagues title game, and with Fresno State having a good chance to be in that game the Dec. 7 date is pretty much off the table. The teams would need to involve a third-party to make this work.
The way the coaches and athletic directors are talking, this game is getting closer and closer to just being canceled.
Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh discussed the ramifications of not playing this game:
"There's clearly a business component to everything beyond the humanitarian side, and everybody is realistic about that, and we'll just do the very best we can that both groups can mitigate the shortcomings we have because of the weather," Boeh said.
"We don't know exactly what kind of negative financial ramifications there are at this point. We know worst-case scenario, and we need to back off that."
Worst case could involve missing out on a possible BCS game due to not being able to get a win over a Pac-12 school to boost their rankings, loss of money and just a chance to play another game. Obviously, that is less important than the destruction the flooding caused to those in Boulder, but on the lighter side it does hurt Fresno State's football team.
Time to give a call to UNLV for a possible trade, or any school.