IRVING, Texas — Big 12 schools will share in a record $470 million of revenue distribution, the conference announced Friday while wrapping up its first spring meetings as a 14-team league and before growing by two more universities.
While the 10 full-share members will get smaller amounts than they got last year because of the addition of the four schools that joined the league for the 2023-24 academic year, commissioner Brett Yormark said the conference is more relevant than it has ever been.
“We went with stability as a conference and we felt it was investing in all the right ways and for all the right reasons,” Yormark said. “Clearly that was the right one for this conference as we think about where we’re going.”
First-year members BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF each will get partial shares of about $18 million each. That leaves about $398 million to be split among the league’s other 10 schools, including Oklahoma and Texas before they move this summer to the Southeastern Conference.
About $440 million was distributed last year.
The Big 12 will grow to 16 teams with the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12 officially on Aug. 1. The four incoming schools took part in this week’s meetings, while Oklahoma and Texas did not.
Yormark said the increases came as a result of bigger College Football Playoff and bowl revenues, growth in ticket revenue across all of the conference championships and sponsorship after streamlining that to be handled directly by the conference instead of using outside parties.
According to tax filings released last week, the five power conferences generated $3.55 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year, with the Big Ten reporting revenue of $879.9 million compared with $852.6 million for the SEC. The ACC saw the most significant increase, going from $617 million in 2021-22 to $707 million.
The Pac-12, which will see 10 of its 12 members disperse to other conferences in 2024-25, generated $603.9 million. The Big 12 was fifth at $510.7 million, which was before distributions when it was still only a 10-member league.
Like the other leagues, the Big 12 is preparing for big changes after news of a landmark $2.8 billion settlement that will transform how athletes are compensated. The power conferences last week agreed to settle a host of antitrust claims that could start steering millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester.
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