AUSTIN — Texas will pay Ohio State $500,000 to reimburse the visitors for their travel expenses for Saturday’s football game, per a Freedom of Information request by the Houston Chronicle.
The Buckeyes paid the Longhorns the same amount when they played in Columbus, Ohio, last season.
“We just trade $500,000 to cover their charter and hotel expenses,” Texas deputy athletic director Rob Novak said.
The two schools agreed on the relative nominal amount because in each instance the host school keeps the rest of the revenue from the home gate, concessions, parking, etc.
That’s a drastic difference from the Longhorns’ other non-conference games this season. Texas paid visiting Texas State $1.4 million for last week’s season-opening game and will pay UTSA $1.7 million when the Roadrunners come to Royal-Memorial next week on Sept. 19.
Texas also gave Ohio State just 3,800 tickets for the game, which is expected to break the school’s all-time home attendance record of 105,215 set in the Longhorns’ home loss to Georgia in 2024. That bettered the 105,213 that witnessed Texas’ near upset of Alabama in 2023. The Buckeyes gave Texas the same number of tickets for the 2025 game in Columbus, Ohio.
Texas had a net gain of about 250 seats from the offseason construction in which it replaced the press box with 10 luxury seats worth $10 million apiece, each of which includes between 24 and 48 seats. But the school had to build a booth on the seventh floor of the stadium for the national television broadcasters and went to wider seats in the club level in the south end zone of Royal-Memorial Stadium.