The Ohio State football team had a lot more at stake against Michigan than a berth in the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday. The team also had a fairly large paycheck on the line.

For accepting an invitation to play in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl for the national championship, OSU earned an estimated extra $761,363 than they would had they lost to the Wolverines. That estimate assumes the Buckeyes would have headed to Capital One Bowl with the loss.

Instead, OSU will get roughly $13 million for going to the national championship game.

“Each team earns a payout of $13 million, which is divided evenly among the 11 Big Ten schools and the Big Ten office, who also gets a share,” said Steve Snapp, spokesman for OSU athletics. “It has always been that way. The Big Ten always get an even share, minus what we get on top of expenses.”

Snapp said OSU would receive an estimated $1.65 million and gets an expense fund up front, which is used to cover travel expenses and other miscellaneous costs associated with the game.

In turn, OSU gets equal payment from payouts other Big Ten teams get for appearing in a bowl game.

For leading his team to the Fiesta Bowl, OSU football coach Jim Tressel will be awarded $100,000 for the BCS game alone, as well as an additional one-month bonus pay to his $205,000 base salary. Also in his contract is an additional $15,000 awarded for winning more than nine games during the regular season.

If the Buckeyes had lost on Saturday they most likely would have earned a berth in the Capital One Bowl, formerly known as the Florida Citrus Bowl.

“Each team gets $5,125,000 that is taken by the school or split among the entire conference,” said Brett Sowell, public relations representative for Florida Citrus Sports, the organization that oversees the Capital One Bowl along with Capital One Financial.

A selection committee of 149 members choose the teams to play in the game. The Capital One Bowl has a tie-in with the Big Ten conference to choose a team from that conference and is the highest paying of all the non-BCS games.

“We get the first pick in the Big Ten after the BCS is played out,” Sowell said.

The committee typically chooses the second-place team in the Big Ten, but it is free to choose any team in the conference that is bowl-eligible. The Capital One bowl will be played in Orlando, Fla. on Jan. 1, 2003.