By accepting an invitation to the 2013 ACC Championship Game in Charlotte, N.C. last December, Florida State University had to pony up a lot of cash. When all was said and done, the undefeated Seminoles crushed the surprising Duke Blue Devils by a score of 45-7. Yet, the margin of victory was nothing compared to the loss it took just by attending the game. FSU lost $213,812.22 (yes you read that right) by attending... but should the team accountant be sacked?

Why is the ACC Championship Game so expensive? Really, all college championship games and Bowl Games are pricey. That can be attributed to the sky high ticket prices college football games fetch nowadays, plus the cost of chartering a plane, or a luxurious charter bus, certainly isn't cheap. And while Duke had the advantage of only living two hours away from Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, the game was played on a neutral site so no one got any hometown discounts.

Yet, this isn't the first time that the team took a huge loss on the ACC title game. In fact, when FSU beat the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets for another ACC conference championship, both teams lost a combined $850,000 plus.

But the nearly quarter million dollar loss doesn't tell the whole story. No one at FSU is having their scholarships revoked or anything like that in order to make up the difference. By crushing the Duke Blue Devils in the ACC Title Game, the Seminoles got to go to Vizio BCS National Championship game. That means major money and it's a means to an end.

According to FSU Associate Athletic Director Monk Bonasorte, it's "just the cost of doing business." After all, you need to spend money to make money right? Bonasorte went on to add the following: 

"You look at it when you talk to our business people. Okay, we lost some money on the bowl or ACC title game. But with revenue and licensing and booster contributions, that will go up. It won't be an immediate impact per say."

Thanks to FSU's success, everyone else in the conference reaps monetary benefits due to a thing called revenue sharing. FSU Athletic Director Stan Wilcox spoke to warchant.com earlier this year and elaborated on how a big loss can turn into a huge gain.

"Let me put it this way: at the end of the day all the ACC schools are making money because of the fact that we had two teams make it into the BCS," Wilcox said. "So when we revenue share we revenue-share equally across the board. So if you were to just look at the ACC championship itself it wouldn't make sense because of the fact that we kind of include that with the whole bowl football payout for each school."

Bonasorte also said that the school has to pay for everyone's tickets, the band, the support staff, a small allotment of student tickets etc.

"They're not going to give us 600 (tickets) for the band, player tickets, our staff and all that," Bonasorte remarked. "We've got to pay for that. So there is no revenue stream for us besides what the ACC pays us as far as travel allotment."

"At the end of the day, you make money," Bonasorte went on to say. "But when you see a financial statement come out at the end of the year and people are saying all how can you lose money to go to the ACC or National championship? Well that's just the way things are."

Are you a big college football fan? Do you think ticket prices are out of control? Let us know in the comments section below.