With the SEC announcing this week the creation of a new network set to launch next August, the Big Ten’s latest financial figures show the new network kid on the block what kind of cash could/will be in their collective futures.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and based on numbers it received from the University of Illinois, each member of the Big Ten will be paid a record $25.7 million from the conference. That number is up from $24.6 million last year.
Those figures include $10.9 million apiece coming from ESPN/ABC, and are the second-to-last projections prior to the arrival of new members Maryland and Rutgers..
While the overall numbers increased, membership will actually see a decrease in its Big Ten Network revenue. Last year, membership outside of Nebraska received $8.1 million each from the network; this year, that figure will fall to $7.9 million.
The Post-Dispatch writes that decrease “could be due to additional revenue going to Nebraska after its second year of membership.”
While the Big Ten remains the reigning king of college football cash, that’s not expected to be the case for much longer. Thanks in part to the creation of its own network, the SEC is expected to payout over $30 million per member annually