EXPENSIVE CUPCAKES. The twelfth regular-season game puts the thirty or forty college football teams with aspirations of playing after New Year's Day in a bidding war for additional wins.

Ohio State, for example, will pay $1.4 million for Navy to come to Columbus in the 2009 season. Wisconsin will pay "just under $1 million" for each of two home games against Northern Illinois, according to athletics director Barry Alvarez. Texas is paying $900,000 to Florida Atlantic this fall. Arkansas is paying Tulsa $850,000, and Georgia and Tennessee are paying more than $800,000 for a single home foe.

"I would say it has been building over the last five to eight years, and I think what really triggered upward mobility of guarantees was the addition of the 12th game (in 2006)," Kevin White, new AD at Duke and president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, said at the group's convention. "I think it's just subject to whatever the market will bear. There is no way to legislate against this kind of escalation. I think at some point it will move into a maintenance phase. But the cost of doing business has become much steeper than in years gone by as it relates to having a one-way opponent."

Major powers often are eager to pay guarantees because they take in several million dollars at a home game, not to mention the ripple effects in their towns from a crowd of 90,000 or 100,000. It also gives them a competitive advantage that could have implications for Bowl Championship Series spots. Less successful teams or those with smaller athletic budgets see guarantee games as a way to build their coffers and give players the experience of facing a major power in a huge stadium.

I wonder if there's a further premium for a Saturday game with network television coverage. Tuesday night football and games available only on the Big Ten Network, which is to say, by flag hoist from the main truck on even-numbered Thursdays after the first full moon of a month with an "R" in its name. Those guarantee games also serve as a way for the mid-major conferences to keep their attendance above levels at which the conference gets derated. It's amateur sports. It's for the experience. It has nothing to do with money.

Every so often the guarantee games have play value. Here's Market Power.

Yes, it's still good to be the cupcake. Here's more on the cupcake diet. Be careful, lest one of those cupcakes comes back to bite you.

Red and Black Attack's Mad Mike observes,

Not saying that's gonna happen, but let's not forget about what happened to Michigan last year. Now can somebody tell me where exactly does that money go?

Wisconsin, in particular, knows better than to treat Northern Illinois as a cupcake. There was a game in Madison in September 1988 when John Ivanic kicked the go-ahead field goal in the waning minutes, an event that still plays on the Huskie Stadium Jumbotron. There was another game in 1992 in which Darrell Bevell's go-ahead two point conversion is still disputed in DeKalb (Mr Bevell says he knew he scored because the pile of players on top of him kept getting heavier). Then there was the September 2002 game in which the referees made three very odd penalty calls in a row, all in Wisconsin's favor.

But I don't know where all the money goes either, or why the pursuit of the revenue warrants Tuesday night football.