This doesn't happen everyday in college football. New Mexico was offered $1.8 million dollars to move its home game with Texas A&M this fall to a "neutral" site in San Antonio, Texas by an unnamed third-party. Surprisingly enough, New Mexico would rather give the fans in Albuquerque a chance to cheer for their team in a home setting.
"We have to develop our fan base," [New Mexico Athletic Director Paul] Krebs said. "Moving the game to San Antonio, I think, would sell out our fans, would be a decision made purely for economic reasons. I think it sends the wrong message to our fans and to our football program."
An unidentified third party approached New Mexico at the end of the 2006 season, just after the school had signed a home-and-home contract with the Aggies, and offered the Lobos $1.5 million to move the game.
The offer kept going up, but New Mexico kept saying no.
San Antonio is some 817 miles from Albuquerque and only 170 miles from College Station, so it was hardly a neutral site in any sense of the word. It may have been a third-party that contacted New Mexico, but it was definitely with Texas A&M's interest in mind.
In a rare twist of BCS schools scheduling with a non-BCS school, the Aggies actually travel to New Mexico first with the Lobos coming to College Station in 2009 (which neatly avoids any last minute buyout surprises for New Mexico). This arrangement would explain why another party came in with the offer to move the game into Texas.
