(Written by kencraw)

OK, before I get too deep into this, I’d better start with a disclaimer: I suspect there was many a year when Stanford was getting the shaft in this agreement. That said…

I read this article about revenue sharing for the Big Game and it really bugged me.

Turns out Cal and Stanford equally share the revenue from every Big Game, both home and away.

It’s not even the smaller stadium part that bugs me, it’s the number of fans. So in 2005, when there were 50k Cal fans and 35k Standford fans in the old Stanford stadium, Stanford got half the money!?! And the next year when there were 55k Cal fans and 15k Stanford fans in Memorial Stadium, Stanford STILL got half!?!

It’s one thing when a stadium doesn’t hold many people and that’s the limitation on how much revenue one can bring in, at least then the school that is benefitting is living under their own limitations the rest of the season. But it’s something else entirely when one school brings at least two-thirds of the fans every year and only gets half the money. Heck, if anything, I think the arrangement is more fair with the smaller Stanford stadium when they’re at least bringing 35k to Cal’s 15k when the game is in Palo Alto.

In any case… no big deal, just thought it was worth a quick rant.