Big earnings for power conferences

[Harry]

In the current BCS system, the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC and Big East each received an automatic BCS bowl berth, earning each league $23.6 million. If a league received a second BCS bowl berth, it earned an additional $6.2 million.

So while the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC will increase from $23.6 million to an average of $91 million during the 12-year period, the Big East will see a decline in revenues in the new format. That's because automatic-qualifying designations will end in 2014. The Presidential Oversight Committee and the commissioners determined the Big East was no longer a power conference because of the number of teams that have left the league.

So the Big East will be included in the "group of five." Those conferences must determine how to distribute their $86.25 million amongst themselves.

In the past, those leagues, formally known as the non-automatic qualifying conferences, gave each league the same base amount and then rewarded the conferences based on their cumulative BCS ranking as a conference. Exactly how that will be done in the new system is still being negotiated among the conferences, sources said.

Although the Big East's average annual revenue from the new playoff will be reduced by about $5 million annually, the remaining smaller conferences -- C-USA, Sun Belt, MWC and MAC -- will see an increase of at least five times what they received in the BCS system.

Also included in the new $470 million of annual revenue is $37.5 million for schools that meet the NCAA's minimum academic requirement, or Academic Progress Rate scores. Each conference will receive $300,000 per school to be distributed to each league member that meets the NCAA's minimum APR.

Read more: http://espn.go.com/c...mat-sources-say