It costs $230,000 for Air Force to travel to Navy for a football game these days. What with the government being shut down and all, that was going to be hard to come by.
Fortunately, the United Services Automobile Association is picking up the tab.
"They're picking up the bills for everything we need," Air Force Academy Athletic Corporation CEO Derm Coll told USA Today.
If somebody hadn't come up with the money, the game was going to be postponed. Air Force was trying to come up with private funding, but there were legal complications that came from the school's fundraising arm funding team travel. That could have been fixed, but it would have required Congress to fix it and ... Congress is closed.
USAA is a major corporate sponsor of Air Force football. Coll was asking for maybe $50,000 or $100,000. That was Wednesday. When they called back, it was to pay for the whole thing.
"They came back and said they're picking up the whole thing; let's get this game going," Coll said. "It's important for us to support the military."
That gets Air Force through the weekend, but until the government turns itself back on, the season is up in the air.
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