Tag: Bowling Green

There has become a constant debate around the college football world over the past few years about which conference truly holds the title of the best conference in college football.

You go to SEC Network and hear Paul Finebaum rave about the SEC and argue that they’ve always held the title.

You go to FOX Sports and hear Joel Klatt and others explain that with Ohio State’s recent success, the gap between the conferences isn’t as large as many think.

Well, in at least one category the Big Ten can say they reign supreme and that is the total revenue from the 2019 season.

USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz did a deep dive on each conference’s revenue from last season and, according to his numbers, the Big Ten took first place by more than $60 million.

AM RT: Power 5 conference revenue totals for fiscal 2019:
Big Ten: $781.5 million
SEC: $720.6 million
Pac-12: $530.4 million
ACC: $455.4 milllion
Big 12: $439 millionhttps://t.co/P7MpktnrU6

— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) July 11, 2020

Here are some of the interesting revenue stats noted by Berkowitz (don’t mind his cover photo of one of Chase Young’s countless trips to the Badgers’ backfield).

• “The Big Ten brought in $781.5 million, which resulted in payouts of about $55.6 million to each of the 14-team conference’s 12 longest-standing members. Maryland and Rutgers received smaller revenue-share amounts, but both schools also received loans from the conference against future revenue shares.”
• “The Pac-12 reported $530.4 million (payouts of about $32.2 million per school). That figure that does not take into account the equity value of the Pac-12 Networks, the conference’s fully self-owned television and video content provider whose expenses help result in the conference passing less money to its member schools than the other conferences.”
• “The Atlantic Coast reported $455.4 million (payouts from $27.6 million to $34 million across 14 schools, plus $6.8 million to Notre Dame).”

First, cue the “Notre Dame should be in the ACC” chatter as you can see they received a sizable payout from the conference.

Second, through these numbers it’s clear that the Power Five conferences are doing more-than-well financially and maybe could withstand this upcoming season of no fans and no out-of-conference contests.

Who will be in trouble are programs from Group of Five conferences that rely on their Power Five contests to stay afloat financially.

Take this nugget from Bowling Green losing their chance to play Ohio State and Illinois.

Fallout from the Big Ten decision.

Bowling Green was scheduled to make $2.2 million this year with non-conference games vs Ohio State and Illinois.

That's a big portion of BG's overall athletic budget and will likely result in loss of jobs and/or a loss of a non-revenue sport.

— Brad Powers (@BradPowers7) July 10, 2020

Teams like Bowling Green (literally) bank on playing games against Power Five schools and without those contests their athletic departments will struggle financially in future years.

Yes, the Big Ten led the major conferences in revenue. But the big story here isn’t that, it’s the financial stability of schools in Power Five conferences and the upcoming struggle for smaller Group of Five schools.