Big Ten tops SEC when it comes to revenue shares in 2023
If you didn’t already know, it pays to be a member of the Big Ten or SEC. And in 2023, that theme continued to ring true. And last year, the Big Ten had more money to distribute to its members than the SEC.
According to a report from USA TODAY Sports, citing federal tax documents from the previous year, the Big Ten distributed nearly $880 million in total revenue. The conference handed out $60.5 million to 12 of its members, including Penn State, with Maryland and Rutgers continuing to get a smaller fraction of the Big Ten revenue sharing. The Big Ten’s total revenue increased by 4% from the previous year, and the per-school payouts increased by about 3%.
The SEC distributed a reported total of $853 million with each of its 14 members receiving an even share of $51.3 million.
New media rights deals with CBS and NBC and continuing its relationship with Fox have helped keep Big Ten revenue at the top of the game. The revenue will continue to grow with the expansion of the College Football Playoff.
The Big Ten and SEC have dominated the revenue sharing game for years, which is why the two conferences are each positioned where they are going into the 2024 season with their latest conference expansion moves, and why the Pac-12 has essentially crumbled to the ground and the ACC is believed to be walking in some shaky ground.
The Big Ten is adding four schools from the Pac-12 with Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah are all leaving for the Big 12 and Cal and Stanford are aligning with the ACC (Oregon State and Washington State were left out of the realignment madness). The SEC will add Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12.
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