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Monday, Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Jay Drew published his findings after obtaining the contract for BYU's 2015 road contest at Nebraska. The juiciest piece of information, of course, is the payout to BYU for the one-time contest, which is $1 million.
While the contract does not specify any further games with Nebraska, hence the huge payout, one hopes that BYU can use its arsenal of strategies to land future games with the Huskers -- whether that is a one-off followed by a home-home like the Cougars did with Texas, utilizing NFL stadiums to create desirable neutral-site games (like Missouri), or some combination thereof.
The payout joins with the historic Michigan check to pad BYU's coffers. The Wolverines pledged $1.3 million to BYU for the 2015 game between the two schools, which is one of Michigan's largest payouts in program history. Typically, Michigan pays $900k to what it considers "branded teams."
Interestingly enough, neither athletic director who helped enact the contracts for Nebraska and Michigan is still with their school. Tom Osborne retired from Nebraska effective January 1, 2013, while Dave Brandon was pushed out (resigned, officially) at Michigan last October.
It's an interesting aspect to the 2015 campaign, which features a leaner home schedule and a front-loaded September. The only thing better than taking $2.3 million from Big Ten schools would be going 2-0 in the process.