What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
This week, we’re talking about money — as in shared revenue. Plus, everyone’s happy for Brock Purdy, right?
MINDING THE REVENUE GAP
In this space last weekend I wrote about five things that commissioner Brett Yormark must tackle now that he’s tied to the league through 2030 after his three-year contract extension. One was revenue.
Well, here’s why.
USA Today published the numbers for the final business year for the Power 5 conference earlier this week. That was their 2024 fiscal years. These numbers are published every year around this time and represent the total revenue generated by each league. It also represents, for the most part, the money that will be shared with league teams after expenses.
That’s the Big 12 at the bottom of the list and by significant margins — nearly $75 million behind the Pac-12 and more than $200 million behind the ACC. Woof. One doesn’t even want to talk about the gaps between the Big 12 and the Big Ten and SEC. That’s why it’s incumbent upon Yormark to keep digging for more revenue wherever he can get it.
Steve Berkowitz wrote the piece and pointed out a few things to keep in mind. First, three conferences — including the Big 12 — reported small drops in revenue. And I mean SMALL. Per Berkowitz, “… the combined revenue tally for fiscal 2024 was nearly $3.54 billion, compared to a little more than $3.55 billion for fiscal 2023.”
That’s nothing to lose one’s head about.
Next, the revenue is going to look different next year with the Pac-12 no longer a power conference. Some of that previous wealth will be distributed to the ACC and Big 12, he wrote.
In the Big 12, team payouts were in a range from $37.8 million to $41.2 million for the holdover programs. BYU, Houston, Central Florida and Cincinnati averaged about $20 million apiece. That was expected. Those four don’t get full shares until the 2025-26 athletic year.
The Big 12 lost more than $40 million in bowl money in FY24 because the Sugar Bowl — the bowl it is contractually obligated to in the College Football Playoff agreement — was a CFP semifinal and therefore the Big 12 didn’t have a team assigned there.
There was also this nugget from Berkowitz: “As previously reported, Oklahoma and Texas received full revenue shares for their final year in the conference, even as the four new schools joined.”
Now you have that quizzical look on your face because you recall there was a buyout of Texas and Oklahoma for $100 million. But Berkowitz provided a handy link to the story that Berkowitz and Kirk Bohls wrote in 2023 after the Big 12, Texas and Oklahoma settled. Here are the two relevant bits:
First, the buyout was $80 million in money OU and Texas would have received in 2024-25 as part of their normal rev share. In other words, the Big 12 withheld it. The other $20 million were the cuts in full revenue shares to help support the four new non-power conference schools.
Second, while the Big 12 bylaws call for two years of withholding, the league agreed to just one, meaning that Texas and Oklahoma got their full shares in 2023-24, or as part of the 2024 fiscal year.
So, what these numbers represent are essentially the last year UT and OU will get revenue from the Big 12 and the first year of the non-power conference schools joining. Next year’s return will include the four corners schools. It will also include more revenue — but maybe not as much as you’re thinking.
Remember — the 2024-25 athletic year and TV contract was the final year of the current deal, which paid schools around $28 million each. The new deal Yormark and the league signed kicks in for the 2025-26 athletic year and pays each school around $31.6 million. I did that math. That’s roughly $507 million, which on its own is slightly better than the Big 12 in FY24. Other revenues will push it higher.
Last year Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said he believed $50 million per program in shared revenue was a possibility. That’s $800 million. That would be an enormous jump from FY24. But if it happened that would be enormous growth for the league. To me, $700 million feels more attainable, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Big 12 was short of that, too.
Either jump would only close the gap so much. The Big Ten and the SEC are on the verge of billion-dollar payouts as soon as next fiscal year.
This is what I was talking about when I wrote about it last week. The Big 12’s money will go up. But so will everyone else’s and the rest have a head start.
Plus, the House vs. NCAA settlement means lost money to payments to previous student-athletes damaged by not having access to NIL and $20 million in revenue sharing with current student athletes. You think all 16 schools are going surrender perhaps half of that revenue to pay for it? Nah, they’ll pass that along to you, fair consumer.
All of that is why it’s incumbent on Brett Yormark, the athletic directors and the university presidents to get creative as a group from a revenue standpoint. They need to find every lever they haven’t pulled and, well, pull them.
Private equity, anyone? That might be the start. More importantly, it might be necessary.
Purdy Got Paid
Never has Mr. Irrelevant been paid with more relevance.
Former Iowa State quarterback Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers agreed to a five-year deal worth $265 million, with $181 million in guarantees, with $165.05 million baked into the first three years of the deal.
That’s big money. That’s big up-front money, but that’s starting to become more of a norm in the NFL. They’re willing to eat the guaranteed cap hits earlier these days, especially on massive deals, so they don’t become toxic later. It’s an enormous raise. He was playing on a rookie minimum deal that was less than $5 million total.
Obviously, there was reaction to the deal, and we compiled that reaction here. But, generally, everyone’s happy to see him get paid. It’s a deal that, to me, looks great in a few years as quarterback money continues to go up. This extension only makes him the seventh-highest paid in the league on a per-year basis.
The only other player listed above Purdy that has been to a Super Bowl is Joe Burrow. He’s worth the money, and there is plenty of opportunity for him to get another deal while he’s still in his prime.
By the way former Iowa State basketball star Tyrese Haliburton is on a five-year, $244 million deal.
So, who’s reaching out to the pair from the Iowa State Alumni Association for a donation?
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
