The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to [email protected] and include ‘mailbag’ in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline
Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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 percent 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 percent 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 percent.
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 year-long 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.
Does the Big 12 know the baseball field in Surprise, Ariz., where the conference is holding the 2026 tournament, is outdoors? It’s going to be 104 degrees today. — @mlucey13
I’m sure the conference is aware of that, yes. The decision to move the baseball tournament to the Phoenix area starting in 2026 was not made in haste.
In fact, the high temperature today in Surprise (updated from the time your question was initially posed) is expected to be 101 degrees, with a heat index of 103.
But in Arlington, where the Big 12 tournament has been staged for the past four years, the projected high is 94, with a heat index of 97 — not much difference.
(We’ll take 103 and dry over Texas humidity any day.)
Also, know this: The chief weather concern for conference baseball tournaments is not heat; it’s rain. And that’s not an issue in Surprise.
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.
Would an 11-1 Memphis team in the American conference be selected over a 10-2 Pac-12 team for the CFP in 2026? — @vince_per
An excellent question that allows us to make clear a few important matters regarding the CFP.
First, the change announced Thursday (to a straight seeding model) is specific to the 2025 season. The format for 2026 and beyond is undetermined.
We expect the field to increase to at least 14 and probably 16 teams, with automatic bids for the Power Four and a spot reserved for the top-ranked team in the Group of Five, which will include the rebuilt Pac-12.
Notice that we said the top-ranked team, not the team with the best record. The selection committee will take schedule strength into account, which means quality depth within each conference and performance outside of league play will be vital to the calculation.
If Memphis has one loss but played a weak schedule and did not beat a ranked opponent, while the two-loss Pac-12 champion played a stronger lineup of opponents, the committee will take that disparity into consideration.
And you can be assured the Pac-12 is accounting for that very situation in its expansion strategy. The schools committed to the conference for 2026 and beyond are wary of adding teams that would drag down the collective. And that’s true for men’s basketball, as well.
(Boise State football and Gonzaga basketball are joining the conference, in part, to untether themselves from the bottom feeders in the Mountain West and West Coast Conference, respectively.)
The American, on the other hand, has a slew of schools that undercut the schedule strength of its best programs in both sports.
As it stands right now, which parts of college athletics get you warm and fuzzy? And which parts give you agita? — @MrEd315
The competition on the field (and court) is endlessly fascinating, particularly in the stretch run and postseason. But the Hotline has always enjoyed tracking and reporting the off-field issues: the financial piece, the media ecosystem, realignment and even the legal matters.
In many ways, those topics are more prevalent and important now than they were back when we first began examining the Pac-12 revenue problem more than a decade ago. (In truth, we first began writing about Pac-12 finances back when it was the Pac-10 and started focusing our coverage on that area when the revenue gap formed.)
My primary source of frustration in the current era is purely self-inflicted:
I did not attend law school and often need to read the legal filings multiple times to understand what is being stated/argued/refuted.
Has the transfer portal made obsolete the belief that you have to extend or fire a coach with one year left on his/her contract? — @bogeycat85
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To a certain extent, yes, the portal has recalibrated the timeline for coaching contracts. And we’re seeing that play out in the Pac-12’s former footprint with Arizona State basketball coach Bobby Hurley.
Hurley was retained in March and has one year remaining on his deal — he’s a lame duck, effectively.
In the pre-portal era, that was untenable. Now, players are perfectly content committing to the Sun Devils for the 2025-26 season because they know they can transfer next spring if Hurley’s deal is not renewed.
It’s difficult to sign coaches to shorter initial deals because they have so much leverage in the negotiations. (The school needs them, not the other way around.) But with extensions for coaches who aren’t coveted on the market, there’s no reason to extend early.
What’s your favorite college football stadium that you like to travel to every year? Why is it your favorite? — @jimmy0726
The Hotline doesn’t visit any single stadium every year, aside from those in our home region (Stanford and Cal), but we have attended games across the land for decades.
Our favorite venue never changes: The Rose Bowl for the Rose Bowl, not for UCLA home games. The Granddaddy is unmatched in scenery, tradition and vibe. And the simplicity of the stadium itself is fabulous.
For regular-season games, Husky Stadium probably stands as our favorite in the region, especially when it’s full and the sound reverberates off the roof and you can see across Lake Washington to the Cascades.
But if we had to pick one facility on any given Saturday, it would be Autzen Stadium, because it’s always full and loud and festive.
On a national level, Neyland Stadium in Knoxville and Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor are tough to beat. It’s amazing that 110,000 people can gather in one place, the Big House, and have the setting feel so intimate.
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