Last year around this time, the SEC was announcing record revenues to be divvied up amongst its member schools. 12 months later, it’s lather, rinse and repeat... even more.
According to Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com, the SEC will distribute $435 million earned in 2014-15 to the 14 schools in the conference. That averages out to roughly $31.07 million per member; in 2009, $13.8 million was distributed to each school.
That total far surpasses last year’s “paltry” record of $20.9 million per member. For comparison’s sake, the Big 12 last year doled out $23.9 million each to eight of its 10 members -- “new” members TCU and West Virginia received partial shares of $14 million each -- while each Big Ten member received in the neighborhood of $24 million.
The Big Ten could slice into the SEC’s financial lead this year, though, as projections pegged B1G institutions at $30.9 million each in revenue for the 2014-15 cycle. The Pac-12, meanwhile, is projected to hand out close to $23 million per -- in 2018, meaning the Left Coast conference is lagging far behind the two Power Five Superpowers.
As for from where the SEC’s revenue comes, McMurphy writes "[t]he total amount of the distribution is composed of revenue generated from the SEC Network, televised football, bowl games, the SEC football championship, televised basketball, the SEC men’s basketball tournament, NCAA championships and a supplemental surplus distribution.”
The SEC Network printed more money in Year 1 than initially projected, which, combined with the wildly-successful College Football Playoff and its substantial windfall, means that the conference should, or more likely will, continue to set annual record revenues standards for the foreseeable future.
UPDATED 2:43 p.m. ET: The official numbers are out, and each SEC school will actually receive a whopping $31.2 million in revenue.