Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife
Component III of our assessment of college basketball financials took an in depth look at the college basketball financials of the Huge East Conference. We saw that its 16-team conference generated the most conference revenue from men’s basketball among any conference in the country, topping $ 154 M in revenue for the 2009-10 season.
Even so, the Large Ten Conference truly generates much more revenue from men’s basketball per school than the Massive East, showcasing that there can be some drawbacks from having a mega-conference. Namely, you have much more mouths to feed and therefore far more sharing ought to take place.
Component IV of our look at college basketball financials focuses herein on the Large Ten.
According to NCAA monetary information, over the last 6 years the Large Ten has earned $ 82.9 M in March Madness money based on their conference’s collective postseason performance. This amounts to $ 13.5 M per year, fourth greatest among all other Division I basketball conferences behind the Huge East, Big 12, and ACC.
So with that as a framework, let’s further review the financials of individual schools inside the Large Ten. And recall from our earlier pieces that the financial information for these programs comes from the U.S. Department of Education and is for the 2009-10 academic year. For reasons described in the afore-linked pieces, this data is highly robust and credible as schools must report their financials to the U.S. Department of Education.
WHICH Large TEN TEAMS EARN THE MOST REVENUE?
Massive Ten schools average $ 12.5 M from men’s basketball with a median of $ 13.7 M.
Wisconsin earned the most revenue from men’s basketball amongst Huge Ten schools, with Indiana, Ohio St, and Michigan St not too far behind. These schools earned between 29-41% far more revenue than the league average.
| TEAM | MBB REV | RATIO |
| Wisconsin | $ 17,666,311 | 1.41 |
| Indiana | $ 16,570,158 | 1.32 |
| Ohio St. | $ 16,190,723 | 1.29 |
| Michigan St. | $ 16,138,167 | 1.29 |
| Illinois | $ 14,413,222 | 1.15 |
| Minnesota | $ 13,733,316 | 1.09 |
| Northwestern | $ 10,048,801 | .80 |
| Iowa | $ 8,796,540 | .70 |
| Penn St. | $ 8,384,315 | .67 |
| Michigan | $ 8,321,413 | .66 |
| Purdue | $ 7,791,967 | .62 |
| MEAN | $ 12,550,448 | |
| MEDIAN | $ 13,733,316 |
Four schools in the conference (Iowa, Penn St, Michigan, and Purdue) earned drastically below $ 10 M in men’s basketball revenues for the reporting year, ranging between $ 7.8-8.8 M.
OHIO STATE AND WISCONSIN THE MOST PROFITABLE
When you factor in expenses, Ohio St and Wisconsin are the only 2 schools that earned profits in excess of $ 10 M. Purdue once more ranked last in the conference, earning only $ 2.6 M in men’s basketball profits.
For the conference, the average men’s basketball profits reported was $ 6.9 M and the median profits was $ 8.5 M.
| TEAM | MBB REV | MBB EXP | MBB PROFIT |
| Ohio St. | $ 16,190,723 | $ four,554,908 | $ 11,635,815 |
| Wisconsin | $ 17,666,311 | $ 7,539,418 | $ 10,126,893 |
| Illinois | $ 14,413,222 | $ 4,980,589 | $ 9,432,633 |
| Indiana | $ 16,570,158 | $ 7,653,945 | $ 8,916,213 |
| Minnesota | $ 13,733,316 | $ five,692,149 | $ 8,041,167 |
| Michigan St. | $ 16,138,167 | $ 8,250,450 | $ 7,887,717 |
| Northwestern | $ 10,048,801 | $ 4,158,854 | $ 5,889,947 |
| Penn St. | $ 8,384,315 | $ four,147,124 | $ 4,237,191 |
| Iowa | $ 8,796,540 | $ 5,243,813 | $ 3,552,727 |
| Michigan | $ 8,321,413 | $ four,913,440 | $ three,407,973 |
| Purdue | $ 7,791,967 | $ 5,171,495 | $ 2,620,472 |
| MEAN | $ 12,550,448 | $ five,664,199 | $ 6,886,250 |
| MEDIAN | $ 13,733,316 | $ five,171,495 | $ 8,561,821 |
INDIANA AND ILLINOIS HAVE THE LARGEST “BASKETBALL SHARES”
With respect to what I’ve called the “basketball reliance” metric, the table below shows that Illinois and Indiana earned 26.9% and 24.1% of their “men’s sports revenue” from basketball. The only other schools with “basketball revenue shares” higher than 20% had been Northwestern and Michigan State.
| MBB REV AS | |||
| TEAM | MBB REV | TOT REV | % OF TOT REV |
| Illinois | $ 14,413,222 | $ 53,502,485 | 26.90% |
| Indiana | $ 16,570,158 | $ 68,769,582 | 24.10% |
| Northwestern | $ 10,048,801 | $ 48,921,823 | 20.50% |
| Michigan St. | $ 16,138,167 | $ 80,064,147 | 20.20% |
| Wisconsin | $ 17,666,311 | $ 93,901,820 | 18.80% |
| Minnesota | $ 13,733,316 | $ 73,599,999 | 18.70% |
| Ohio St. | $ 16,190,723 | $ 89,375,805 | 18.10% |
| Purdue | $ 7,791,967 | $ 61,508,748 | 12.70% |
| Iowa | $ 8,796,540 | $ 88,510,052 | 9.90% |
| Penn St. | $ 8,384,315 | $ 106,614,724 | 7.90% |
| Michigan | $ 8,321,413 | $ 106,666,191 | 7.80% |
| MEAN | $ 12,550,448 | $ 79,221,398 | 16.90% |
| MEDIAN | $ 13,733,316 | $ 80,064,147 | 18.70% |
In short, the information shows that the typical Massive Ten school earned roughly 17% of its “men’s sports revenue” from men’s basketball.
Schools like Michigan, Penn St, and Iowa received less than 10% of their overall men’s revenues from  basketball, largely due to the fact of the relative disparity between their revenue-generating capability in football relative to their basketball programs.
To this point:
| TEAM | MBB REV | FB REV | FB REV / MBB REV |
| Penn St. | $ 8,384,315 | $ 70,208,584 | 8.37 |
| Michigan | $ 8,321,413 | $ 63,189,417 | 7.59 |
| Iowa | $ 8,796,540 | $ 45,854,764 | 5.21 |
| Ohio St. | $ 16,190,723 | $ 63,750,000 | 3.94 |
| Michigan St. | $ 16,138,167 | $ 44,462,659 | 2.76 |
| Minnesota | $ 13,733,316 | $ 32,322,688 | 2.35 |
| Purdue | $ 7,791,967 | $ 18,118,898 | 2.33 |
| Northwestern | $ 10,048,801 | $ 22,704,959 | 2.26 |
| Wisconsin | $ 17,666,311 | $ 38,662,971 | 2.19 |
| Illinois | $ 14,413,222 | $ 25,301,783 | 1.76 |
| Indiana | $ 16,570,158 | $ 21,783,185 | 1.31 |
| MEAN | $ 12,550,448 | $ 40,578,173 | 3.64 |
| MEDIAN | $ 13,733,316 | $ 38,662,971 | 2.35 |
This shows that (a) the average football revenue for Huge Ten schools was $ 40.6 M per school, and (b) Large Ten schools averaged $ 364 in football revenue for every single $ 100 in men’s basketball revenue.
Penn St, Michigan, and Iowa were the only schools to earn at least five times much more football revenue than men’s basketball revenue.
REVENUE GROWTH FOR THE CONFERENCE
| Massive 10 | 2009 | 2003 | Ratio |
| MBB Revenues | $ 138,054,933 | $ 43,976,630 | 3.14 |
| WBB Revenues | $ 8,619,769 | $ 12,837,167 | .67 |
| Total Rev – Men+Girls Sports | $ 656,351,301 | $ 493,419,907 | 1.33 |
| MBB Rev as % of Total | 21.% | 6.7% | three.14 |
| WBB Rev as % of Total | 1.3% | 2.% | .67 |
| Basketball as % of Total | 22.3% | 11.5% | 1.94 |
Comparing aggregate conference revenue data from 2003 to 2009 and controlling for inflation by measuring both years in constant 2009 dollars, we can surmise that:
- Men’s basketball revenues have grown roughly 214% during that span although women’s basketball revenues have shrunk by 33%
- Men’s and women’s basketball comprised 22.three% of aggregate revenue from men’s and women’s sports in 2009, substantially up from 11.5% in 2003.
One must surmise that the creation of The Big Ten Network has had a considerable impact on the growth of men’s basketball revenues.
Massive TEN TOURNAMENT – A WEAKER DRAW Amongst BCS CONFERENCES
Lastly, based on attendance information from the NCAA for the 2009-2010 season:
- The Big Ten tournament ranked 5th in average attendance per session in 2010 with 16,325 fans per session (ACC, Large East, Large 12, and SEC Tournaments all had greater attendances per session)
This stands in contrast to the standard season, where in 2009-2010 the Large Ten was the only conference with an average attendance in excess of 12,000 fans per game.
All in all, and likely in huge part to the creation of The Massive Ten Network, the Massive Ten’s men’s basketball revenues are amongst the greatest in the nation.