Take a peek behind the curtain to see how WVU and UNLV arrived at their game contract for 2010 and how it’s a big change for the Mountaineers.  

So, West Virginia is paying UNLV a guarantee of $740,000, plus 3,000 tickets (from which UNLV keeps the proceeds, at about $50 apiece) … and on Oct. 9, 2010, the Mountaineers will get what WVU Deputy Athletic Director Mike Parsons calls “about a $2 million day … that’s about our usual game day.”

It wasn’t easy for WVU to pay Vegas the big bucks, but Rebels AD and Kanawha County native Mike Hamrick made it clear that UNLV needed a big road check to pay its own bills.

So, the bidding began, but the notion of paying $740,000-plus for a football guarantee was foreign to the Mountaineers.

It’s $300,000 more than WVU previously has paid for a no-return game.