.Northern Illinois stunned No. 5 Notre Dame last weekend break on a last-second field goal to mark university soccer's initial major distress of 2024. For the Huskies, it is actually a win they'll be commemorating for many years ahead. For the Battling Irish, it is actually a season-crusher. To drop the home opener to a small school coming from a vastly inferior event was a humiliation for Notre Dame.Especially considering that they paid for NIU $1.4 thousand to carry out it.This sparkles a light on one of the longest as well as most expensive customs in college volleyball: guarantee games. They are actually likewise gotten in touch with "amount of money activities," "income games," or, as I as if to contact all of them, "purchase weeks." A costly (and dangerous) traditionFor years, in the first handful of full weeks of the time, significant college volleyball companies have paid out much smaller schools to follow to play them in their house.In Week 1 alone, much more than $35 million was invested all over a minimum of 55 assurance activities, according to Front Office Sports. Alabama wrote the greatest examination to its own opponent, Western Kentucky, for a monstrous $1.9 thousand. WKU dropped that game 63-- 0, but they perhaps reached the rely on the bus trip home as well as probably won't hesitate about it.In Week 2, three institutions-- Western Michigan, Center Tennessee, and also Utah State-- got payments larger than NIU's $1.4 thousand. They shed through a combined credit rating of 156-- 3, but they took home a total of $4.85 million in the process.It's normally a good deal for each teams. The small institutions receive a paycheck, the huge universities receive yet another home activity to dairy gameday earnings. The small university comes to use the large phase as well as get national exposure, the significant one obtains a cupcake on the routine to begin the year in a sport without preseason. Thus all's well and great until the smaller crew makes a decision to reveal out as well as take the upset.