The Big 12 announced late last week it will distribute a record amount of revenue to its 10 member schools for the 2021-22 fiscal year.
The league is set to split $426 million ($42.6 million per school), which is a nearly 25 percent increase from last year and a 10 percent increase from the pre-pandemic peak.
That news was announced last week at the league’s spring meetings, which were held in person for the first time since 2019. At that time, the league reported $388 million in revenue. That number dropped to $345 million last June for the 2020-21 school year.
The revenue number is expected to increase over the next two years, the last of its current media rights deal with ESPN and Fox, but it will also be a time of change within the league with Houston, Central Florida, BYU, and Cincinnati all expected to join the league for the 2023-24 school year, plus Oklahoma and Texas currently expected to leave the league on July 1, 2025.
The $42.6 million per school distribution level still ranks third among Power 5 conferences, well behind the data analysis firm Navigate’s projections for the Big Ten ($57.2 million) and SEC ($54.3 million), but ahead of projections for the Pac-12 ($34.4 million) and ACC ($30.9 million).
Obviously, it is worth noting the Big 12 is the smallest of all those leagues so it will be interesting to track the revenue changes once the four new schools are introduced, and even more so once Oklahoma and Texas make their departure for the SEC official within the next three years.
