The Big Ten Conference recorded over $750 million in revenue in 2018.
This is the highest recorded figure of any conference in the NCAA. The exact total was $759 million, almost $100 million more than the second-place Southeastern Conference.
As seemingly obvious, this growth and total were both provided by the lucrative television deals both within the Big Ten Network and through larger providers such as ESPN.
That said, the 14-team Big Ten has seen members like Rutgers University, the University of Maryland, and the University of Nebraska join over the past decade, surpassing the 13-team SEC and the 10-team Big 12.
USA Today gives a brief insight into just how remunerative these schools are.
The Big Ten’s new basic per-school share means that those programs received more money from one revenue source than the vast majority of Division I athletics departments had in total. More than 170 of the 213 public-school athletics programs outside the Big Ten reported less than $54 million in operating revenue for fiscal 2017, the most recent year for which figures have been compiled by USA TODAY, in partnership with Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
