The SEC is the most valuable conference in college sports according to revenue estimations by Forbes, which uses a combination of TV deals, bowl game payouts and NCAA Tournament profits to determine each Power 5 league’s annual value.
(h/t @ChrisSmith813 for the graphic)
College sports’ 10 most valuable conferences earned a whopping $1.3 billion in TV dollars last fiscal year with the SEC + Big Ten combining to swallow 48 percent of that total, says Forbes.
Earlier this year, the SEC distributed a record-setting $31.07 million to each school in revenue and the majority of those checks came from TV contracts ($347 million). The increased bowl payout with the introduction of the College Football Playoff provided another $64 million to the conference and the wildly-successful NCAA Tournament added $17 million.
The Big Ten is inching closer to the SEC in terms of revenue and reportedly expects each school to receive a $44.5 million payout as early as 2017-18.
Thanks to the SEC Network, which didn’t expect to generate a profit until its third year in existence, the SEC’s revenue stream is only going to increase over the next several years.
