The Bakersfield College Athletic Department, along with sponsors Clifford and Bradford, offered the Mt. San Antonio College athletic program $20,000 to make a trip up from Walnut, to play their Nov. 20 Southern California regional playoff game here in Memorial Stadium.

Mt. SAC declined the offer based on the belief they had a better chance of winning on their own home field and the advantage BC would gain would be too great. BC ended up traveling for the game and losing 36-26 (see story, page 8).

If Mt. SAC had accepted, the playoff would have coincided with BC’s Golden Empire Bowl and would have drawn far more than the few hundred that showed for the Fullerton-Canyons matchup.

This isn’t the first time that BC has paid a school to travel here to play. This is a situation that BC can take advantage of because of the community support it receives compared to other community colleges around the state.

Athletic Director Jan Stuebbe confirmed that he goes through all the proper channels to have the venues switched. With the Mt. SAC game in particular, Stuebbe contacted the California Community College Athletic Association and bowl sponsor Clifford and Bradford, which eventually put up the other half of the $20,000 offered.

Stuebbe originally offered $10,000, which is $5,000 more than he offers to other opponents during the regular season. Stuebbe offered L.A. Pierce $5,000 to play at Memorial Stadium. Pierce accepted and played the first game of this season in Bakersfield.

Stuebbe broke the situation down and explained the details of where the money would have come from.

“If we have that game up here, we’re going to get a big crowd. I know in that particular game, we get 60 percent of the profits, and the last time we played Mt. SAC in the playoffs we had 12,000 people here,” he said. “We estimated having 10,000 people here and that would make us $100,000 and we would get $60,000, so I said I would offer them $10,000 to come up here.”

Stuebbe said it generally costs BC $5,000 to travel to away games and they make a better deal with the amount of tickets they can sell here at BC.

The Sunday following the last regular-season game, Stuebbe called the committee – which was making decisions for the first round of playoffs – and asked about offering Mt. SAC $10,000 to play at BC.

After talking with the committee, Stuebbe called the sponsors and informed them of what he was trying to accomplish. The sponsors responded by doubling the amount originally offered and together they approached Mt. SAC with a new offer.

Mt. SAC Athletic Director Joe Jennum spoke about being informed of the offer and why they chose not to take the offer.

“I don’t know whether the money was going to be funded through ticket sales or through sponsors, but we didn’t let the talks get that far. The $20,000 was what we were told, but as soon as we received the offer, we notified Bakersfield that we would play our game at home, because we felt that’s what our athletes deserved.”

Mt. SAC Sports Information Director, Brian Yokoyama confirmed that they received the offer saying, “We received the offer and obviously we didn’t take it, but it was offered.”

Stuebbe explained where the money would have come from.

“Half would have came from Clifford and Bradford and the other half from the 60 percent of the ticket profits we would make,” he said.

Stuebbe mentioned why he thought this would have been significant to BC, beyond the financial advantage.

“We attempted everything that we could because Bakersfield is so unique, and we normally outnumber fans when we go away, so it was worth a shot,” said Stuebbe. “It was an opportunity for us to have 10 to 15,000 people, with a great experience in the best bowl game.

“They considered it, but they decided not to and turned it down, and I can’t say I blame them for it. They had home field advantage and it was important to them,” he said.

Stuebbe went on to talk about the importance of gaining extra home games throughout the season.

“Basically the football programs profit margin pays for all 18 of our sports. Football doesn’t get all of the income they make. It’s a third of the budget and football supports the rest of the athletic teams, and we have to do that because the athletic department isn’t fully funded by the college.”