It’s that time of the year.
Yes it’s the boring stretch of the offseason where not much happens to be sure, but there are a few tidbits of information worth noting for fans. Some of these come via the always thrilling tax returns filed by the various FBS conferences across the country. USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz obtained the Big 12’s this week for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2018 and to absolutely nobody’s surprise, the league brought in quite a bit of coin:
Big 12 had $373.9 million in total revenue for fiscal yr ending June 30, 2018, new tax record shows. That's a $3 million increase over amt for FY17 for the 10-team conference. SEC, with 14 teams, has reported $660 million for FY18.
— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) May 9, 2019
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby credited w/ nearly $4.1 million in total pay for 2017 calendar year, conference's new tax return shows. This includes $757,680 in deferred comp reported in prior years, so basically just over $3.3 million earned in 2017 (up from $2.85M in 2016)
— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) May 9, 2019
Big 12 distributions to schools in FY18 ranged from $36.6M to Oklahoma to $33.6M to Kansas (25% of Baylor's share was withheld, which conference addressed in October 2018). SEC's full revenue shares averaged $43.7 million in FY18.
— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) May 9, 2019
Overall, the Big 12’s total revenue figure of $373.9 million is just a slight bump up from the $371 million reported the year prior but a hefty increase on the reported $313 million from FY2016.
As Berkowtiz notes, that total sum is nearly half of what the 14-team SEC reported for the same fiscal year and will likely be a distant third among the Power Five conferences behind the mammoth payday the Big Ten also receives. The Pac-12 still lags behind those figures either way (total and per school distribution) but the real question is if -- or perhaps when -- the ACC will wind up moving past the Big 12 in the pecking order with the launch of their own conference network in 2019 plus another successful college basketball season on the books.
Those are concerns for another day though as the Big 12 remains on solid ground for the timing being with some big checks to cash for the league office and its member schools.