The payout goes to the conference which disperses the funds to the member institutions, with the participating bowl member getting a slightly larger portion from their bowl, however they still have to cover those tickets. Those tickets end up making going to Bowls a losing or break even proposition to many schools.
We were talking about the proliferation of meaningless bowls, not just the soon to die BCS. Yes the Big 5 conferences are making money in the end because of the pooling of the payouts, otherwise some of them would lose money. OU on their own would have barely made money at the Cotton bowl last year, if they had to cover the ticket losses that Florida had. Travel expenses for team, staff, band, cheerleaders etc. was almost $2 million.
We were talking about the proliferation of meaningless bowls, not just the soon to die BCS. Yes the Big 5 conferences are making money in the end because of the pooling of the payouts, otherwise some of them would lose money. OU on their own would have barely made money at the Cotton bowl last year, if they had to cover the ticket losses that Florida had. Travel expenses for team, staff, band, cheerleaders etc. was almost $2 million.