Overview:
The practice of "money games" in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) football, where teams receive large payouts to face top-level college football teams, has sparked controversy over whether the games are fair to student-athletes. Coaches have expressed concerns about the potential harm to the psyche and health of their players, while athletic directors argue that the games are necessary to provide needed funds for various programs. The debate continues as teams weigh the financial benefits against the risk of injury and humiliation.
By Terrance Harris
Grambling State coach Mickey Joseph reignited a controversial conversation recently after his Tigers suffered a 70-0 loss at No.1-ranked Ohio State in an early-season college football game.
For their efforts, Grambling State University received a record $1 million payday in what are known as money games. The concept of money games in HBCU football, where FCS programs receive large payouts in exchange for hitting the road and suffering a humiliating defeat to teams in the top level of college football who are better stocked with superior talent and funding, is not new.
But the divide has grown so much wider in this era of the transfer portal, NIL money and now revenue sharing, which has essentially allowed FBS Power 4 programs to put together teams with values that exceed most HBCUs’ total athletic department budgets.
“Cal has a $25 million-plus revenue sharing budget, so my take was that our guys were ready to play, we were in the game. We weren’t too fond of our second-half adjustments. That game was for us to win. Every time you have a coin toss, you expect to win the game and we just didn’t win the game.”
TSU coach Cris Dishman
While praising his players and assistant coaches for a valiant effort against the Buckeyes, Joseph let it be known that his program had been asked to stand at the bottom of a mountain that was impossible to climb.
“What do they have, a $35 million roster? I don’t have a $35 million roster,” Joseph quipped in the postgame press conference. “Maybe we could put our money together and we could come up with $35 million, but I doubt it.”
Joseph’s words have restarted a conversation that has gone on for years: whether these money games are fair to the HBCU student athletes who are outmanned and overmatched in these games, where they are almost always guaranteed to suffer humiliating defeats and sometimes serious injury. Deion Sanders raised the point the loudest a few years ago when he was the head coach at Jackson State, when he said the games were unfair to the student athletes and questioned whether the paydays usually in the $300,000 range were enough for the potential risk of injury.
HBCU athletic directors and administrators will tell you that these money games are necessary to provide needed dollars not just to the football team and other athletic programs but also for the bands, which are always a part of these games, and the schools’ general fund.
Joseph questions whether the reward is worth the potential harm these games present to the psyche and health of the student-athletes.
“I guarantee you I didn’t wake up and say, I want to play Ohio State. But we do use it for financial help,” said Joseph, whose team played Division II Kentucky State of the SIAC the next game before jumping into SWAC play. “We did our part. We helped financially. Now the playing field is even and we did our part. Now it’s time to move on. Our players understand that because we don’t hide anything from them.”
Texas Southern and Prairie View also take part in the money games.
Prairie View went over to Rice and suffered a three-touchdown loss earlier this month in a game in which the Panthers actually led 7-0 early in the first quarter before ultimately losing 38-17 for a $350,000 payday. Prairie View athletic director Anton Goff did not respond to interview requests from the Defender for this story.
Texas Southern went out to Cal of the ACC, where the Tigers trailed just 11-0 at halftime before eventually suffering a 35-3 loss in exchange for a $625,000 check, which will be shared with football, athletics and TSU’s world-famous Ocean of Soul Marching Band for the trip to the Bay Area. Days later, TSU coach Cris Dishman—without prompting—mentioned the $25 million roster the Bears have in comparison to his nonexistent roster value. The Tigers’ entire athletic department budget is $15,791,738.
But when the Defender asked Dishman about his feelings on whether the money games should be played, the second-year coach declined to elaborate.
“I can’t really answer that question. I haven’t been in HBCUs or Texas Southern long enough to answer a question like that,” Dishman said to the Defender. “But to me, it’s … whoever is on your schedule, you are supposed to win. You go out there to fight to win the game and whatever happens happens.
“They were on our schedule; we were supposed to win that game. We were in that game to win it. We weren’t in that game just to show up for the money. We were in it to win the game.”
That is likely the case for every HBCU program forced into these money games. But the consequences can be rough.
In a recent matchup between North Carolina A&T and the Big 12’s UCF, the Aggies took a 68-7 thumping. But the Aggies’ top three quarterbacks were knocked out of the game to add insult to injury.
“For our team,” North Carolina A&T Shawn Gibbs responded to a reporter’s question about whether the payday was worth it, “I don’t think it’s worth it. I mean, we got 60+ points put on us and lost three quarterbacks. Yeah, for me it was a good environment, great platform, but is that worth it? I don’t know.”
Joseph also questions the true value of money games, but he reminded his players that the season isn’t about how you start but how you finish.
“Most definitely, it can hurt the confidence getting slaughtered 70 to nothing,” Joseph said. “But immediately after the game, we made sure to reiterate to the players that this has nothing to do with what’s going to happen here on out because nobody remembers what you did in September and October and November.
“Now the playing field is even, but it definitely can take people’s confidence. We had to make sure that we looked at it with reality when we looked at it as coaches. This is a very confident group. They understand why we had to play the game, but just like me, they wanted to come out healthy, and we have.”
This story was originally published on Word In Black on September 18th, 2025
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