As the new world order is shaping up in college athletics, one metric to define how the conferences fall in the pecking order is how the conferences distribute revenue within based on how much revenue they earn, social media followings, and competitive success, especially in “revenue” sports.
Conference Revenue Distribution
Conference affiliation has a direct relationship with NCAA financials as conferences distribute their revenues evenly between schools. One example of how this has caused some friction is in the ACC as Florida State and Clemson pursued a legal battle with the ACC as they felt they deserved a larger slice of the revenue pie. The conference’s grant of rights continues through 2036 and both schools were looking to leave the conference but the legal battled was settled this past week.
Under the settlement, the exit fee to leave the ACC has been greatly reduced. Florida State’s attorney’s estimated it could cost about $700 million to leave the conference. With the settlement, that exit fee has been reduced to $165 million beginning next year, with a reduction of $18 million per year until it stays at $75 million from 2030 onwards.
Social Media Followings
Social media is a huge driver of success and can be an indication of fan interest. With fan interest comes ticket sales and viewership (larger media deals), bringing in larger revenue. Out of the Power 4, the SEC is by far ahead of the Big 12, Big Ten, and ACC with 762K followers on Instagram. The Big 12 has the second highest with 344K while the Big Ten (243K) and ACC (163K) have less.
Competitive Success
Future competitive success is likely to be a key factor going forward. The SEC has been known to be a powerhouse football conference, fueled by programs such as Alabama and had Texas join the conference with realignment this past offseason. The ACC on the other hand has been more known for its success in the basketball scene, fueled by schools such as UNC and Duke.
The College Football Playoff is one way that competitive success can impact conference order due to revenue. Teams that made the playoff earned the conference $4 million each, teams in the quarter finals earned another $4 million for the conference, teams in the semifinals earned an additional $6 million for the conference, and the final two teams earned another $6 million for the conference.
Although the ACC was represented by Clemson and SMU in the expanded College Football Playoff, neither school made it past the first round, meaning the ACC only earned $8 million total, compared to the $46 million earned by the Big Ten, primarily from Ohio State making it all the way to the title game. The Big Ten distributed its payout evenly between all schools in the conference, earning each school $2.8 million each, while the ACC allowed Clemson and SMU to keep their payouts in full.
Well, I see the situation evolving now like football, transfer portal NIL money will create super teams…ie Texas, Virgina, Florida. Sad to see all this happen.
Social media is a red herring, as it is mainly used as a home base for what NIL means. As a metric of market or brand value it is basically useless, unlesed s an individual is at an “influencer” level.
Athletic department budgets at the moment in the SEC and Big Ten are pretty ugly and running huge deficits.
My expectation is that within 24 months the “equal distribution” in conferences will be jettisoned. The bottom line is the bottom line, and in the Big 10 the money is OSU, Mich, Penn State and Oregon. Period. In the SEC it’s Alabama, Georgia, Texas and LSU. There might be 1 or 2 in the convo. As the dollars get bigger… Read more »
Memo: USC if they want to spend has the money..
One major factor not discussed is media rights. I believe the Big Ten has the largest contract right now with over a Billion a year. SEC, while at only 300M a year, is set to renegotiate soon. I would imagine this is the largest source of income for the conferences.
The Instagram comparison is interesting, really just wrapping my mind around how much that could be driving finances. I am curious how that data is derived. Is that fans of a conference website, or something similar? I assume it isn’t all the fans of athletes within a conference, that is probably a little tricky to get at, though I assume the SEC would still likely win that race by an even larger margin (e.g., Livvy Dunne, LSU…)…
With Instagram, seems like individual and/or team followers is more relevant that who follows the conference websiite. Individual ACC swimmers (Walsh sisters, Kate Douglas almost as many followers as the cited figure for the ACC. Cooper Flagg, a Duke basketball player has more than the cited SEC figure. Conference tv revenue, football ticket sales, and alumni donations seem likely to be the biggest factors.
Looking at it that is just followers of the one of official conference instagram. Though it appears to be the ACC Network for the ACC as the conference itself doesn’t seem to have an official insta.
The chart looks like it was built with
SEC ( https://www.instagram.com/sec/ ) – 762k followers.
Big 12 ( https://www.instagram.com/big12conference/) – 344k followers
Big Ten (https://www.instagram.com/bigten/) – 244k followers
ACC Network (https://www.instagram.com/accnetwork/) – 172k followers
Other potentially relevant numbers would include the SEC and Big 10 Network followers, both of which are higher than the conference followers.… Read more »
To make sure I read it correctly, making to to the final game earns the conference 4+4+6+6=20 million?
How much did the SEC earn and how was that distributed?
“The SEC, for instance, gives large bonuses to the teams that participated in the CFP ($3 million, $3.5 million, $3.75 million and $4 million for each round).” This article explains a lot of the fine print: https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2025/notre-dame-football-20-million-cfp-payouts-1234824580/
It looks like the SEC earned $16.75M.
2024-25 College Football Playoff Team Payouts
School Round Conference Payout
Notre Dame F Independent $20M
Ohio State F Big Ten $2.56M
Texas SF SEC $10.25M
Penn State SF Big Ten $2.56M
Oregon QF Big Ten $2.56M
Georgia QF SEC $3.5M
Boise State QF Mountain West Not disclosed 1
Arizona State QF Big 12 $500K
Tennessee R1 SEC $3M
Indiana… Read more »
Given that they said the big 10 got 46 and Oregon had a first round by (first game was in the quarterfinals vs Ohio State) it looks like all the top 4 seeds (Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State) made 8 mil for the conference (4+4).
So by conference the 116 million was earned as follows. I have no idea how the conferences dealt with that beyond what the article states for the Big 10 and ACC.
Big Ten: 46
Ohio State: 4+4+6+6 = 20
Penn State: 4+4+6 = 14
Indiana: 4
Oregon: 4+4
SEC: 26
Texas: 4+4+6
Georgia: 4+4
Tennessee: 4
Independent: 20
Notre Dame: 4+4+6+6
Big 12: 8… Read more »
What about Sun conference or Conference Carolina’s??
The last ACC team to play in the final four (men and women) is NC State
And as the greatest symbol of modern college sports, the coach who led the men to the Final Four and got a raise and contract extension got fired less than a year later.
It is my understanding he was going to be let go at the end of last season. But, they they won the ACC and ran through the NCAA tourney and the administartion gave him a new contract and an extension. A literal victim of his own success.