Atlantis trip could net financial gain for Iowa

IOWA CITY - Beyond the benefits of playing top-notch competition at a world-renown tropical resort, a successful tournament run by the Iowa's men's basketball program could provide its athletics department with a financial lift.

Iowa receives a $150,000 appearance fee to compete in this week's Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, which is held at the Paradise Island complex outside of Nassau, Bahamas. The tournament company pays for all transportation, hotel rooms and meals for the travel party as well.

Even more unusual, the tournament will donate $200,000 to the athletic scholarship fund for the title-game participants. A third-place appearance nets $50,000 and a fifth-place game earns $25,000. The tournament contract was provided to The Gazette by university officials via an open-records request.

"That's new to me, but all contracts are different so you never know exactly what the terms are going to be," said Mark Abbott, Iowa's associate athletics director for legal affairs.

Few tournaments have financial incentives for teams to participate, let alone to win games. Iowa participated in the Cancun Challenge last year, and no participation fee was listed in the contract. Likewise, the contract for next year's four-team exempt tournament at New York City's Madison Square Garden - which consists of Iowa, Syracuse, California and Texas - also lists no participation fee, let alone a scholarship donation.

"It's a pretty prestigious tournament in terms of the quality of teams that are there," Abbott said of Battle 4 Atlantis. "I guess that shouldn't be a surprise."

The appearance fee slightly offsets the rising costs associated with paying non-conference opponents to play at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Iowa will pay seven opponents a combined $647,500 in guarantees. Iowa had to pay Abilene Christian $100,000 as its home opponent in the Battle 4 Atlantis. The contract wasn't completed until Aug. 28, and it required Abilene Christian to play another Battle 4 Atlantis squad (Xavier) and also compete in the tournament's mainland venue, which is held in Baltimore.

Iowa paid UNC-Wilmington $97,500, Maryland-Eastern Shore $95,000, three opponents cost $90,000 (Penn, Farleigh Dickinson and Arkansas-Pine Bluff) and Nebraska-Omaha cost $85,000. The average cost per game this year is $92,500, up from $86,875 last year and $72,875 two years ago.

"I think it's gone up, yeah," Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said of the buy-in games. "I don't pay much attention to it to be honest with you. We have parameters given to us by the administration and we follow them."

Basketball guarantees pale when compared to football. Iowa, for instance, paid Missouri State $475,000 to play this year and paid Arkansas State $900,000 in 2009.

Iowa doesn't receive or pay guarantees in its annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge match-up, which this year is at home against Notre Dame. Neither Iowa nor Iowa State receive appearance fees to one another, and all proceeds from the Big Four Classic held in Des Moines next week are split evenly among the schools.