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The Big Ten Conference just set a new record, and it’s not on the field. The league announced a $1.37 billion distribution to its 18 member schools for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, the largest payout in conference history. That figure represents a $490 million jump from the $883 million distributed the year before.
The conference credited the surge to the first full year of its new media rights deals, revenue from the expanded College Football Playoff, and its first season operating as an 18-team league after adding Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.
“The distributions provide meaningful support to institutions in their continued effort to provide broad-based athletic opportunities to more than 14,000 Big Ten student-athletes.”
On average, schools received about $76.1 million each, though the actual amounts varied depending on postseason runs and other revenue factors.
Ohio State led the pack.
After winning the College Football Playoff national championship during the 2024 season, the Buckeyes pulled in $91.57 million. Penn State followed at $88.92 million after its own postseason run, while most other full members landed somewhere between $76 million and $80 million. Oregon and Washington, which are still on partial revenue shares through 2030, received $48.4 million and $46.7 million, respectively.
For context, the SEC reported distributing just over $1.03 billion across its 16 schools for the same fiscal year, averaging $72.4 million per school. The Big Ten is now outpacing its biggest rival financially, and it’s not particularly close.
Average Revenue Distribution Per School
| Conference | FY 2023-24 | FY 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|
| Big Ten | $63.2 million* | $76.1 million |
| SEC | $52.6 million | $72.4 million |
* Approximate to 12 long-standing members
A big part of this is the current TV deal. The Big Ten’s television agreement generates more than $1 billion annually on its own, and this past year was the first time those numbers hit the books in full. Add in a broader College Football Playoff format that’s funneling more money into conferences, and the revenue math starts to make sense pretty quickly.
The conference also highlighted national championships in football and men’s basketball, along with multiple NCAA titles across member schools this academic cycle, as indicators of the kind of competitive performance that tends to drive postseason bonuses and additional distributions.
With playoff expansion talks still ongoing and conference realignment far from settled, the Big Ten’s latest numbers are a reminder of just how fast the financial landscape of college athletics is moving.
