NCAA Tourney Payouts

According to Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal, the NCAA payouts go as follows;

According to conference officials, the NCAA payout goes like this: each school gets $300,000 for making the first round, $400,000 for the second round, $550,000 for the third round, $800,000 if a team makes the Elite Eight, and $1.1 million if a team makes the Final Four.


A total of nine Big East teams, including Marquette University, qualified for the NCAA men's basketball tournament. That means $2.7 million just for showing up.

If all teams play to their seed, the Big East will earn approximately $9.2 million (over $600,000 for each of the 15 teams).
I guess that shows why football is king, the Big East made more than that for just one guaranteed BCS bowl game - win or lose.

What is tough is that the NCAA literally functions off of what they make off of the tourney. They make zero off of football. If the NCAA was allowed to make money off of football, they would not need to keep 93% of the basketball tv money.

Now, I am guessing schools are paid out by round, right? So if you win and advance, you get the $300k AND the $400k, not just the $300k, right?

The new NCAA tv contract, with added digital rights, is over $11 billion for 14 years. That right there is about $786 million per year. Looking at Walker's numbers....

$300,000 x 68 = $20,400,000
$400,000 x 32 = $12,800,000
$550,000 x 16 = $8,800,000
$800,000 x 8 = $6,400,000
$1.1 mil x 4 = $4,400,000
Total payout = $52,800,000

Yep, that is $52.8 million and the NCAA keeps $733.2 million.

That is just the TV rights, does not include any of the ticket sales or merchandise sold.

Now look at the NCAA women's tourney, College World Series, and all of the other college championships televised on ESPN - that TV deal is worth $55 million over 3 years, that is $18.3 million per year. I don't know how much of that is paid out to the participants, but I would guess travel costs eat up just about all of it.

NCAA Tournament is BIG money for the NCAA, too bad football won't give them a dime (even though they have to do more work for football than any other sport), or the payouts would be better. I still say they should require that the NCAA gets 5% of every football tv contract, season and bowl, and then they could finally staff themselves adequately.

Some more reasons to hate football.

Wow - Big XII signs big deal....

The Big 12 and ESPN are nearing an extension that will earn the conference — combined with its Fox TV contract — $2.5 billion over the next 13 years, according to industry sources. The ESPN extension would run through 2025 and sync up with Fox’s deal. By network, the Big 12 stands to make $1.3 billion from ESPN and $1.2 billion from Fox over the life of the two deals.

Schools in the Big 12 will reportedly earn just under $20 million a year, under the league's new TV contract, which is close to completion. (AP Photo)

ESPN’s old contract with the Big 12 ran through 2016, but the two sides are close on a nine-year extension that will increase the conference’s average revenue from its current $150 million a year to nearly $200 million annually. Each Big 12 school stands to make roughly $5 million more a year in the new contract over the old deal.

Additionally, the new media revenue could effectively end any discussion of the Big 12 expanding back to 12 teams, not the news that Louisville wanted to hear. The Cardinals had been positioned as a strong candidate to join the Big 12 if it expanded.

Under the new terms, each Big 12 school will average just under $20 million a year. Schools in the Pac-12, which also partnered with ESPN and Fox to generate its record $3 billion deal over 12 years, will average nearly $21 million per school.

This might mean ESPN's targeting of the Big East is real, and this is the final nail. If true, got to wonder if the Big East will be suing the crap out of ESPN for destroying the conference?

The Big East has done a good job of regrouping. Prior to that they were blindsided and taken to school by the suits at ESPN. (with the help of some ethically challenged administrators at Pitt and Cuse) I think the BE Commish learned several lessons and is ready to play hardball using both public opinion, the political system and the courts. ESPN will need to be extremely careful not to kill the golden goose. I say ESPV tries to make peace before they get cut off at the knees by forces more powerful. The Big East is at a Clint Eastwood moment in the relationship with ESPN. With the network's arrogance it should be as interesting to watch as any game they have aired. The only difference is this one would exposure dirty laundry no one on the network's side of the equation wants to be revealed.

Go ahead -- make my day.