As college basketball’s non-conference slate winds down and the long, messy road toward March heats up, it’s a good time to peel back the curtain on something fans rarely see, but every coach, administrator, and scheduling nerd obsesses over: college basketball contracts.
Today, we will look specifically at non-conference game contracts.
What do they actually say?
How do these games come together?
And why does scheduling one November matchup sometimes feel harder than recruiting a four-star point guard?
I’ve lived in this world. Earlier in my career, I oversaw a Division I men’s basketball program and helped build schedules. To this day, it’s a top-three “this shouldn’t be this hard” item in college athletics — and yes, it really is that hard. I’ll give you the 30,000-foot TLDR version here before your eyes glaze over, because each of the topics below has its own rabbit hole, loophole, and late-night phone-call saga that could fill an entire book.
The Dating Game (But for Basketball Programs)
Scheduling is, essentially, Tinder with budget lines.
If you’re a mid-major or low-major, you can’t be too good or too bad. If you’re too good, no one wants to risk paying you to come beat them. If you’re too bad, the “value” of playing you tanks — it hurts NET metrics, kills résumé strength, and makes home fans grumble. Either way, the numbers have to line up. Guarantee-game schools want to save money, and the money they don’t spend on buying games often gets rolled straight back into the team’s operating budget.
This also plays into the in-state rivalry dynamics — you can’t lose to little brother. The optics aren’t there, and yes, we all know it would likely be a sellout or at least see a bump in ticketing, but it’s not worth the risk.
Think of it this way: a power-four team loses to an in-state, lesser opponent. They paid them $60,000. Sure, single-game ticket sales were up $100,000. But the team still takes the loss. The team pays the $60,000 out of its budget, and that $100,000 gate bump? That goes back to the department. And now those in-state kids you’re recruiting against have a little more ammo to use on you.
On the other side, high-majors and strong mid-majors have an explicit revenue line they must hit. This is essentially the basketball version of football’s guarantee-game economics.
And here’s the great twist:
Those teams that play a lot of guarantee games usually don’t see a penny of the revenue from them. Some will get a portion once they reach a threshold, but for the most part, guarantee money typically goes into the athletic department’s general fund.
Enter NIL and Revenue Sharing
Some smaller schools are now strategically playing extra buy games to generate funds for their collectives or to meet revenue-sharing obligations.
Yes, some teams are literally scheduling fundraisers to cover their revenue-sharing.
That $100,000 paycheck game can go a long way — it might get you a difference-making small forward and a sixth man if you’re a low-major program. This isn’t new; it’s just new jargon. Before, some of those checks were routed through third-party collectives. Now, schools can simply pay the players themselves.
Scheduling
So how do these games get set up? Good old-fashioned phone calls mixed with texts, emails, and a few niche websites. Sometimes athletic directors get involved, but most scheduling is handled at the program level, usually between the head coach and one other staff member. There are also service sites strictly for athletic administrators and coaches where they can post “Games Wanted” or “Games Needed.”
Many of these listings read like Craigslist at 2 a.m.:
“Willing to buy.”
“Need to be bought Dec. 21 weekend.”
College basketball scheduling is, in many ways, a dating service with better fonts.
A True Buy Game: USC Upstate at Fresno State
Let’s examine a standard one-off non-conference buy game.
On November 5, USC Upstate traveled to Fresno State and shocked the Bulldogs 67–66.
The price tag for Fresno State?
$100,000.
Simple contract:
You come to us.
We play.
We pay you.
We win.
What makes this one fascinating is the timing. These types of deals at the mid-major level don’t usually get done early. This one was signed in early May, meaning conversations likely started in late March.
And context matters: Upstate was coming off a 6-26 year and looked noncompetitive by most metrics. That’s exactly the kind of team a Mountain West school might think is a safe early-season win — especially before the portal dust settles.
Spoiler: Upstate hit the portal well. And now, barely into December, the Spartans are already within one win of matching last year’s total.
The Non-D1 Game: Cheap, Convenient, and Occasionally Chaotic
Teams can play non-D1 games. It’s uncommon, but it happens — especially around the holidays or to fill a late cancellation. Think of them as “bought-local” games.
Boise State paid $17,000 to host Hawai‘i Pacific on opening night this year.
Then Boise State infamously lost to D2 Hawai‘i Pacific 79–78.
Those games count on your schedule, but they don’t always count for March metrics — something Broncos fans reminded the world within hours.
The other interesting language here is the cancellation fee.
If either team cancels or fails to appear (outside of approved reasons), the offending school owes $200,000. Highly doubt they would cancel over receiving a $17,000 payment.
Also notable: The game was contracted on August 25, which is a tad later than normal. Roughly eight weeks later, they were tipping off.
Multi-Team Events: The NCAA’s Scheduling Loophole Factory
Next comes the MTE — the Multi-Team Event.
A Multi-Team Event is an NCAA-approved tournament that allows programs to play up to 4 games while counting as only 1 toward the schedule limit. Because MTEs often include campus-site games, you end up with a couple of extra opportunities to boost your NET, add home dates, or bank buy-game checks.
Promoters love MTEs for TV inventory. Coaches love them because they feel like mini postseason simulations. Fans love them because they’re usually good or unique matchups.
Schools are allowed to compete in only one MTE per year. Some schedules may look like they’re playing in two, but one of those events is usually just branded as a “tournament” for PR purposes. It may act, look, and feel like an MTE, but the paperwork is never filed, and nobody claims it as one. Confused yet?
Don’t worry — starting next year, teams can compete in multiple MTEs, and the NCAA is allowing up to 32 scheduled games. They’re simplifying the system because, as hinted above, there are just too many loopholes.
A great example: UNLV and the Jack Jones Classic. Not an MTE. UNLV worked with a third-party to schedule games. Sports Network LLC, who operates the Jack Jones Classic, gets schools participating to get a home game and then a “neutral site game” against a quality opponent. In UNLV’s case, they paid the Sports Network, who takes the funds to broker matchups for the home, or sometimes referred to as a “campus game.”
Thus, that’s why you see UT Martin listed as part of UNLV’s schedule, even though UTM wasn’t even part of the Jack Jones Classic.
They were simply a “brought-in” opponent to fulfill the home-site requirement.
You may have also noticed that the Jack Jones Classic is in Henderson, not Las Vegas. In a move that’s more like an MTE, it’s the magical neutral-site game.
Why are these important?
Because the NET — the main metric for March Madness — rewards them. It’s also easier to snag a Quad 1 win based on the formula:
Quadrant 1: Home 1–30, Neutral 1–50, Away 1–75
Quadrant 2: Home 31–75, Neutral 51–100, Away 76–135
Quadrant 3: Home 76–160, Neutral 101–200, Away 135–240
Quadrant 4: Home 161–353, Neutral 201–353, Away 241–353
Most teams can only get a dozen or so true home games. Very few have enough elite opponents willing to visit their campus to generate many home Q1 opportunities.
At the core of the NET is the Team Value Index — essentially, efficiency margin adjusted for opponent strength and game location. Neutral sites eliminate the typical 3–4 point home-court advantage baked into the formula, meaning a close win on a neutral floor grades out better than the same result at home.
A neutral-site loss to a good team is rarely catastrophic (often still Q1 or Q2), whereas a home loss to that same opponent could drop into Q2 or even Q3 — the kind of “bad loss” the committee hates.
The Art, the Science, and the Madness
Scheduling is part art, part science, and part back-alley negotiation with a spreadsheet.
It isn’t as simple as it might seem at first glance. You have to juggle budget concerns, NET ranges, conference scheduling requirements, MTE participation rules, and travel windows. Academic calendars and TV slots also play a role, along with NET protections, buy-game economics, and win-probability expectations. Layer in today’s collective and revenue-sharing realities, and you start to understand why building a college basketball schedule is far more complex than most people realize.
And if you don’t hit your conference’s scheduling requirements?
You get fined. Yes, that’s a real thing. They have their own rules.
So the next time your team plays an early-November nobody or pulls off a surprising upset, remember:
It wasn’t random. It wasn’t easy. And somebody somewhere spent months texting, calculating, begging, declining, or refreshing a “games needed” website at midnight to make it happen.
Because in college basketball scheduling, every matchup has a number attached — and every number has a story behind it.
