Another year as a Big 12 member is in the books for TCU and West Virginia, and that means a slightly higher percentage of the Big 12 revenue shares are coming. David Ubben of FOX Sports reported the revenue share the Horned Frogs and Mountaineers will be receiving this year will jump to 85 percent as per the arrangements made when accepting membership in the conference.
Last year Big 12 schools received a revenue share valued at $23 million per school. TCU and West Virginia only received $14 million of that as first-year members in the new conference. This is generally the standard operating procedure for new schools in a conference. Next year at this time West Virginia and TCU will receive a full Big 12 revenue split.
Last year the Big 12 divided $213 million between its members, which was up from $198 million the previous fiscal year. How much will be in the pot for the Big 12 is expected to be announced later this week as the Big 12 spring meetings play out. Of all the power conferences, the Big 12’s $198 million in 2012-2013 was the lowest total revenue to share. Having two teams (Baylor and TCU) participate in the College Football Playoff bowl structure (although not actually in the playoff) figures to help the Big 12 revenue number jump to some extent this year.
On a related note, with the SEC meetings also going on this week, it will be interesting to see what kind of revenue numbers the SEC will have to share. With the introduction and success of the new SEC Network, the numbers figure to be pretty high.