It’s no secret that the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six bowl games deliver big money to conferences.

But Forbes has reported that the SEC stands to receive $70 million from the bowls set to be played today by Alabama, Georgia and Auburn. There is a $54 million base payout, which includes $300,000 for each team which meets the NCAA’s APR for participation in a post-season football game.

  • $6 million for Alabama’s berth in seminfinals
  • $6 million for Georgia’s berth in the semifinals
  • $4 million for Auburn’s berth in the Peach Bowl

Those numbers are identical for Clemson and Oklahoma as their opponents. It doesn’t take winning the national championship to create a financial windfall for their respective conferences either, because there’s no additional compensation for competing in the title game on Jan. 8.

The Big Ten will make the most money this year, $89.5 million, on the strength of the $54 million base payout, and $27.5 million for Wisconsin’s berth in the Orange Bowl. This season, the Cotton, Fiesta and Peach Bowls each pay out $4 million per team selected under the College Football Playoff’s revenue distribution system.

Forbes noted that any revenue earned by a team for a berth in a bowl game goes directly to the conference and is then distributed according to each conference’s own rules. After covering a specified amount of travel expenses, most conferences divide all bowl revenue equally between full members (with an equal share calculated in for the conference office), with the SEC being the notable exception.

The SEC exception is for bowl games with receipts of $4,000,000 – $5,999,999, the participating team retains $1.5 million, plus a travel allowance determined by SEC. For bowl games with receipts of $6 million or more (including all College Football Playoff games), the participating team receives $2.025 million, plus a travel allowance determined by the SEC. If an SEC team makes it to the championship game, it receives another $2.125 million, plus travel allowance.