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University of Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon sits in the audience during the regents meeting at the Michigan Union on June 19, 2014.

(Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News)

ANN ARBOR -- Michigan's bowl game invite to Tempe, Ariz., last season was a loss both on the field and in the checkbook.

The U-M athletic department spent $2.01 million on its trip the 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, according to expense documents obtained by MLive.com via a public records request. Michigan came close to breaking even in expenditures, but wasn't quite there.

Ultimately, the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl left U-M roughly $132,000 in the red.

The Big Ten Conference gave the university $1.875 million to offset the cost of travel and other expenses associated with the game, according to Michigan associate athletic director for media and public relations Dave Ablauf. But Michigan's overall expenditure of nearly $2.01 million left it with $131,861 in out-of-pocket expenses.

U-M's loss of $132,000 does not include revenue brought in from the Big Ten's shared bowl revenue plan, which splits all Big Ten bowl revenue among the conference's 12 teams. In its 2013 financial survey filed the NCAA in January, the athletic department reported $11.78 million in earnings for conference bowl game distribution and shares of conference television agreements, according to documents obtained via a public records request.

The Big Ten's Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl payout was $3.5 million this year.

In the game itself, the Wolverines lost to Kansas State, 31-14, on Dec. 28, 2013 at Sun Devil Stadium.

Michigan's $2.01 million expenditure marked a $280,000 increase from the $1.73 million spent on its 11-day trip to Tampa, Fla., for the 2012 Outback Bowl and more than $300,000 short of the $2.35 million spent on its BCS trip to the 2012 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

The U-M athletic department turned small profits in both, netting $66,618 for the Outback Bowl and $78,916 for the Sugar Bowl.

"The key thing for most people is that they think going to a bowl game is a money-making experience, but around here, if we break even, we're happy," Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon told MLive. "Now it's a great experience for our kids and our coaches and our fans and the young people, everybody, the band -- they love it and have a great time -- and we enjoy doing it. I'm not whining about it, but it's certainly not a financially rewarding experience.

"Now if you go to one of the BCS bowls, it's like anything else, once you take a step up the ladder, typically the expense allocation goes up and it gives you more resources that you can invest and offset your cost."

While Michigan received 1.85 million from the Big Ten to cover costs of the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, it received $1.8 million for Outback Bowl and $2.05 million for the Sugar Bowl.

Michigan lost to Kansas State, 31-14, in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., on Dec. 28, 2013.

The bulk of Michigan's $2,006,861 million spent on the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl is made up in $1.15 million in travel costs, $664,595 in meals and lodging and $68,295 in tickets absorbed.

For the team travel party -- a group numbering 357 individuals spending seven days on the road -- transportation costs reached $722,907, while meals and lodging totaled $521,309.

The 333-person band and cheerleader travel party cost $410,430 in transportation and $120,935 for four days of lodging and meals.

A group of 21 additional faculty members and athletic department personnel traveled for four days, costing $43,067 total.

All told, travel costs trumped that of an 11-day trip to the 2012 Outback Bowl in Tampa, which amounted to $1.73 million.

"You're chartering jumbo jet and you're not flying two hours or three hours -- you're flying four and half or five hours," Brandon said. "It's just a longer way to go and a more expensive venue. So it's going to cost more."

As for Michigan's ticket allotment, an oft-discussed topic for bowl-bound school, Michigan absorbed $68,295 for 1,026 unsold tickets committed to the university. The Big Ten, meanwhile, absorbed $322,270 for 5,497 unsold tickets.

Both numbers should decline in upcoming years.

In its new national bowl slate beginning in 2014, the Big Ten has negotiated a smaller number of tickets each school is required to sell -- a shift prompted by the now countless avenues of purchasing tickets, mostly on the secondary market, according to Brandon.

The new bowl lineup, though, also includes a larger bowl footprint, creating more travel.

Heading into the upcoming season, the Big Ten holds a six-year contract with the Capital One (Orlando, Fla.) and Outback Bowl (Tampa), an eight-year agreement with the New Era Pinstripe Bowl (New York City) and six-year agreements with the Fight Hunger Bowl (San Francisco) and Holiday Bowl (San Diego) and a postseason game to be played in Detroit.

Additionally, Big Ten teams have agreed to appear on three occasions over a six-year period in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl (Fort Worth, Texas), TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (Jacksonville, Fla.), the Heart of Dallas Bowl (Dallas) and the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl (Memphis, Tenn.).

The Big Ten also holds a 12-year contract to face a Pac-12 team in the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.) through the 2025 campaign and an agreement with the Discover Orange Bowl (Miami) for a Big Ten team to face an ACC representative at least three times following the 2014-25 seasons.

As for the new four-team College Football Playoff to begin after the 2014 campaign, semifinals will rotate between the the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Chick-fil-A Bowl (Atlanta), the Cotton Bowl (Arlington, Texas) and the Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Ariz.).

"With our new bowl arrangement, the Big Ten is going to have relationships with bowls in Northern California, Southern California, Texas -- the bowl picture is really spreading out," Brandon said. "That's smart, but we all have to be really sensitive to the fact our practices -- (at Michigan), when we go to a bowl game, we're taking a lot of people. We take our band. We take our spirit squads. When you're chartering jumbo jets and filling them up with people, and filling up hotels, it gets expensive."

Brandon concluded by saying, "Looking forward, I think it will be interesting to see different bowls and different schools, depending on where you go, and what those expenses are. I think you're going to see more volatility, in terms of, OK, what's the real cost to go to a bowl game?"

Brendan F. Quinn covers University of Michigan basketball and football. Follow him on Twitter for the latest on Wolverines hoops. He can be contacted at bquinn@mlive.com