Apr 22, 2014 11:06 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Somehow, Florida State spent $2.8 million during the event that was the BCS National Championship game. They made most of it back, but lost just under $500,000 when adding only their revenues and expenditures, ESPN reported.

Overall, of course, Florida State made and will continue to make much more than they lost from their appearance. Though the official numbers aren't available, the $500,000 loss doesn't take into account the amount of money the ACC paid the university for qualifying for and winning the sport's biggest game (undoubtedly, it was much more than 500k) nor does it take into account future revenues given FSU's current standing as the defending national championship (and forever standing as the 2013-14 national championships). The title will boost memorabilia sales and will likely continue to attract top recruits -- mostly athletic but maybe some academic, too.

"We're not losing money in the long run, because as a conference, we're making a lot more money and those dollars are filtered down to the institutions," Athletics director Stan Wilcox told ESPN. "The issue has to do with the amount of expense allotted to go participate and what your expenses end up being."

Almost half of the expenses were attributed to travel. Florida State spent $1,372,805 on 699 people -- 237 members of the team, 416 band members, and their combined equipment -- going from Florida to Pasadena, California, according to ESPN. The rest was spent on tickets, of which FSU was allotted and purchased over 22,000, and hotel/eating costs. Since the game was across the country, the college wasn't able to sell as many tickets as it would have liked. In total, it lost over $700,000 on ticket expenses.

Maybe if there wasn't such a gap between the final regular season game and the championship one (for Florida State it was almost exactly a month), schools with teams in the final game wouldn't have to spend so much money on postseason play. But such is the format of college football's postseason, where every bowl game is its own event (and usually its own day). By 2015, the sport is projected to have at least 40 bowl games for the first time.

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