Wilner predicts Washington and Oregon will leave the Big 10, and more
DerekJohnson
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 66,989 
Big Ten per-school media revenue of $75 million to $100 million is now being reported. Since Oregon and Washington signed a separate contract, were they aware their shares were in the 35-to-40 percent range? Would it have mattered? — @Jalex0077
Yes, they were aware. They were acutely aware. And it didn’t matter to university leadership. (Should it have mattered? We can address that issue another time.)
But the question allows us to drill down into, and clarify, a subject that is frequently misunderstood in and around the Big Ten world: the conference’s revenue distribution, particularly as it impacts the Huskies and Ducks.
The Big Ten schools are not earning $75 million to $100 million in media revenue. Not even close.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the total payouts are expected to hit $75 million for the schools receiving full shares. But that includes postseason revenue from the College Football Playoff, bowl games and the NCAA tournament.
The media rights deal — the heralded contract with Fox, CBS and NBC that was signed in the summer of 2022 — is providing roughly $62 million of that total.
(It could be $60 million; it could be $64 million. We don’t have access to the deal itself, but numerous sources have confirmed that payout range in recent years.)
The value of the media contract will increase over time and eventually exceed $70 million per school at the end of the seven-year term. But right now, it’s in the low-to-mid $60 million range.
When you add the postseason revenues, the total jumps to $75 million. And that’s an important distinction, because the half-share status for Oregon and Washington applies only to the media rights piece. The schools receive full shares of the postseason treasure chest.
In other words, each of them will collect more than 50% of a total revenue share.
Until the 2024-25 budgets are available for public viewing (next winter), we won’t know the specifics. But our hunch is the Ducks and Huskies will receive approximately $43 million from the conference. That’s about 57% of the amount full-share members should collect.
The media rights portion is believed to increase by about $1 million annually for Oregon and Washington, but their total intake will climb substantially because of the new College Football Playoff revenue model.
Starting with the 2026 season, Big Ten teams will receive $21 million in CFP cash, up from the $6 million that’s sent to each school under the terms of the current deal with ESPN.
Because the major increase in revenue will come from a source (the CFP) that provides UW and Oregon with full shares, the two schools should make up ground on the other 16.
They won’t pull even, not during the seven-year contract term with Fox, CBS and NBC. But eventually, their shares of the total amount distributed should climb over 60%.
It’s not ideal, and you can make the case that they would have been better off financially in the Pac-12. (Granted, it’s not an easy case to make.)
But from an exposure standpoint, there is no comparison between what the Big Ten provides and what the Pac-12 would have offered.
Hope that clarifies the Big Ten revenue situation.
All the extra media dollars mean schools can spend even more money on athletics (athlete payment, coach salaries, facilities, etc). The beneficiary of that is the athletic/industrial complex. It’s a shameful arms race. How about just once reflecting this point of view in your columns? — Richard M
Because the Hotline doesn’t entirely agree with your assessment.
In our view, the universities benefit immensely from the success of their athletic programs, with football atop the list. There is no other branch of campus that generates as much exposure for the institution, that provides a better return on investment.
You could plow $50 million into a yearlong marketing campaign for Utah or Arizona State or Cal, and the ROI would not approach the brand exposure offered by 12 football games per year broadcast on over-the-air and cable networks.
Are there specific aspects of the industry that should be reformed? Yes. The buyouts built into the coaching contracts are, in many cases, egregious.
And when revenue sharing takes hold (presumably) this summer, the resource allocation will be tweaked. Schools won’t spend $20.5 million on the labor — err, the athletes — and continue to fund other aspects of their operations at the same level.
But generally, we view the dollars spent to build and maintain a winning football program as a shrewd use of resources.
PBS isn’t paying Utah millions of dollars per year to broadcast lectures in the engineering school.
If the TV networks got together tomorrow and realized that the wave of conference realignment from 2021-24 is bad for the product long term and asked the conferences to all reshuffle themselves back to their original configuration, do you think Washington State and Oregon State, or the Big 12 or Mountain West, would accept back their old conference mates? I’m curious if people would ignore the last three years if it meant normal college athletics again. — @ch224gp
Absolutely, the Big 12 would take back Texas and Oklahoma, the Pac-12 would welcome its former members and the Mountain West would opt to remain intact.
Bitterness and frustration melt away when tens of millions of dollars are at stake.
And let’s not forget, the eight schools that decided to leave the Pac-12 in the summer of 2023 didn’t want to depart. Otherwise, they would not have waited 13 months for former commissioner George Kliavkoff to offer a reasonable media rights deal.
We have written numerous times that the current situation isn’t sustainable for the West Coast schools in the Big Ten and ACC. At some point in the late 2020s or early 2030s, common sense will prevail.
Does that mean football will return to its previous structure? We aren’t convinced.
But the Olympic sports, perhaps with basketball included, will reform along regional lines.
For soccer and softball and volleyball and others, this is insanity — and everyone knows it.
Will the new Pac-12 schools get paid the College Football Playoff per-member annual payout for 2026 that Oregon State and Washington State are set to receive ($3.6 million each)? Or will they continue to get the $1.6 million to $1.8 million allotted to the Group of Five schools? — @kha1926
The math is a bit confusing because there are separate agreements for the new Pac-12 and the dollars involved change after this year.
The CFP revenue distribution for 2024-25 falls under the terms of the current ESPN contract, with the Cougars and Beavers receiving the same amount (about $6 million) as the former Pac-12 schools; each member of the Group of Five collects about $1.5 million.
The model shifts in the fall of 2026 with the new contract cycle. WSU and OSU negotiated payouts of $3.6 million per school for at least three years, but the new Pac-12 members moving over from the Mountain West will earn about $1.8 million.
However, keep this in mind: The Pac-12 will almost certainly implement a performance fund, with a portion of the total conference revenue distributed based on success in the CFP and NCAA tournament.
Don’t assume from the disparity in playoff paychecks noted above that the newcomers will have markedly lower total distributions.
Jon Wilner: jwilner@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Comments
Thanks Taft!
@haie
as much as I can’t stand Wilner’s “I’m still a Pac 10/12 journalist” crap, he’s probably correct on this one. It’s not sustainable.
Everyone but SC, who could go full Notre Dame also, will come back to the west coast in some form of new conference realignment, and should for the sake of the rest of the athletic dept.
Football could stand alone on its own two feet financially and compete in a mega conference. The one thing the west coast schools cannot do in this scenario is give SC or Oregon major shares over everyone else, because they feel “National brand” bullshit. I could see both wanting an extra cut.
Wilmer has to be getting funded by Cuog and Baev
Time for Wilner and Jalex0077 to move the fuck on.
You can rage all you want that you think that Washington and Oregon should be in your conference along with 10 fan schools from the Bay and Utah but that has never been the reality.
And now Wilner has had his carrot on a stick for so long that he has to subtlety admit that now, at least wrt football.
I predict Wilner eventually won't be able to make the payments on the Real Doll he fucks every night.
Well make the case then motherfucker.
that’s quite a bullshit line
Football is going to be separate from all other aspects of schools, save the name on the buildings they play in. The logical recalculation in 5 years is that all other sports go back to regional alignment. Football is semi-pro and will be treated as such.
Probably the best case outcome one could hope for at this point.
I think there's a good chance we get regional realignment and hope so. I don't know if the Bay Area schools or the Coug or Beav will work though, especially when they have more years of not being in a top conference. Bay Area schools can't get people to care or attend games and the State schools are really small and Coug is super hard to get to.
Translation… I. HATE. UW.
I didn't even read the article and I disagree.
I predict nobody on this board will be alive the next time there is a P5 conference of any significance comprised of west coast or -adjacent schools.
Genie is out of the bottle. The fuck it's not sustainable. The only thing that could turn it around is all the middling programs in the Big 10 screaming because the Pac teams are more competitive, and not just in football.
Forget it. If UCLA ever wakes up in football, the 4 Pac schools playing in the Big will feel like they've been there for 20 years in just a few seasons. Just watch.
I loved the old conference but I also know when it's time to say goodbye to things. Well, most of the time.
And Wooly makes a good point: Cal, Beave and Cuog were already compromised programs and Stanford has their challenges. The 3 to 5 years MINIMUM that those schools will be out there in Boise State status is going to absolutely skull fuck those programs. In an era with rodent-like attention spans, nobody will remember that any of those schools once had competitive teams. Their impact was too light and the time out of the spotlight is going to kill them and make them permanent Fresneck level.
West coast football supporting 90% welfare programs is what was not sustainable. In 5 years the 4 former Pac programs will be making 90 million fucking dollars a year.
Boohoo half shares until then; they're still making double what they would have made without jumping, and probably more than the Big-12 that's about to be relegated to mid major status.
There are two conferences that matter, plus Clempson, FSU and Miami, and those 3 will be out of the ACC at the next round of media contracts.