Big 12's revenue distribution growth reflects national trend for P5 leagues

Conference earnings and distributions are becoming public and the meteoric rise continues for Power 5 conferences except for the Pac-12. The power conference to the west took a step back for a variety of published and widely discussed reasons including poor carriage for the almost non-existent Pac-12 Network owned fully by the Pac-12 Conference.

The SEC had a near stall before launching the SEC Network with ESPN from 2016 to 2017 and the ACC has rebounded after a loss in distribution from 2014 to 2015. ACC Commissioner Jim Swafford believes an increase should occur with the ACC Network coming online in 2019, also with ESPN. The Big 12, despite a tumultuous history of change, backstabbing, and infighting, remains strong in revenue distribution and settling into the top three for revenue distributed.

Below is a simple line graph to track the conferences along with individual programs Texas and Oklahoma who each own their individual third-tier rights. The visual shows increases and decreases over a period of time and the increases amongst four of the conferences have led to a building spree on campuses across the country.

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Texas leads the way over the past six years

When including the Big 12’s newly added streaming agreement with ESPN, along with Texas and Oklahoma’s third-tier revenue, the conference along with the B1G and the SEC have distanced themselves from the ACC and Pac-12.

The Pac-12’s decline of 1.4 million in 2018 could be worse in 2019 with carriage fees of the PAC 12 Network coming in softer than expected. The leadership of the Pac-12 confirmed some of the decrease was realized from revenue loss with the Rose Bowl being in the playoff rotation and the PAC 12 being left out.

*Big 12:  2.2 million added for ESPN+ Tier 3 content
**Texas: 15 million added for LHN average contract
***Oklahoma: 7 million added for FSN Tier 3 contract

The ESPN+ contract gives an idea of Tier 3 content from eight schools in the Big 12. The new ESPN+ contract for Tier 3 is for 50 pieces of content from each of four schools in 2019 and eight in 2020. At times, Baylor made more than the 2.2 million when Fox Sports picked up football, men’s basketball, Lady Bears and additional programs. At other times, less was made with fewer content pieces picked up. Adding the $2.2 million gives a realistic estimation for the past six years.

Oklahoma has a $7.0 million contract with Fox Sports and Texas has a $15.0 million with ESPN for the Longhorn Network. Each of these deals propel Texas and Oklahoma above the other eight schools, but the eight appear to accept the difference, as do Texas and Oklahoma.

The newest deal for the BiG 10 created a gap from all other conferences. Unlike the Pac-12 Network, the BiG 10 Network has been a success and brings in revenue for the conference. The same can be said of the SEC Network on ESPN. The top three conferences in revenue distribution, along with Texas and Oklahoma, appear to be the biggest winners of the past six years. 

The ACC and Pac-12 have been the two conferences occupying the last two positions since 2016 and it appears the ACC has been the only of the two conferences with the ability to make a move to reverse the trend. The move away from Raycom as a Tier 3 provider to ESPN should leave the PAC 12 membership frustrated and looking up at a gap from the lowest earning conference.

What the future holds in the next five to six years during contract negotions will be interesting to watch as the PAC 12 will need a miracle to not be left behind in the contract arms race. For the Big 12, two members are locked into individual contracts beyond the 2024-25 negotiations. With ESPN+ now involved, could this push the Big 12 towards a full network with ESPN currently owning the Fox Sports Regional Networks?