The Southeastern Conference had a nearly 4% decline in revenue during the 2022 fiscal year, the conference’s new federal tax records show. The uncommon drop was a small one and likely a temporary setback to its position of financial power in college sports, however, as the SEC is likely to be far ahead of every Power Five conference except the Big Ten in total revenue for that year.
A document provided by the conference on Thursday in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports shows the SEC with total revenue of just over $802 million for a year ending Aug. 31, 2022. It reported $833.4 million in revenue for its 2021 fiscal year.
“The Conference’s total revenue has varied as we manage through pandemic realities, transition of our media agreements and prepare for membership expansion,” commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. “We are confident the Conference’s revenues will stabilize and increase significantly as we move forward to a new media agreement and growth to a 16-member conference.”
The decline meant that distributions to the SEC’s 14 member schools averaged about $49.9 million per — a decrease of about $4.7 million per school compared to the distributions the conference reported for its 2021 fiscal year. Most of that drop can be attributed to a $4 million share of a signing bonus each school got when it signed a new football TV deal with ESPN in December 2020, which put that money into the fiscal 2021 cycle.
To put it simply, it is mostly just an accounting issue. And once the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners join the conference, the 16-team league will be beyond flush with cash.
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