Television deals are generally for multiple sports, so schools individually choose how much of a contract to attribute to each sport when reporting.Ĭontributions are also an important factor in college football revenue, because they’re generally required in order to purchase season tickets, and the amount of a person’s contribution can significantly impact their game day experience. To provide a more representative example-Michigan football reported $25.3 million in contributions and just $11.8 million from its conference distribution (which would include the conference’s primary television deal with ESPN, its contract with Fox for the conference’s football championship game and the conference’s own cable channel, Big Ten Network). However, Texas is the only school within a major conference to have its own cable channel.
Texas is in the unique position of receiving additional television revenue from ESPN for its school-specific Longhorn Network cable channel, which does bring its television revenue closer to equaling contributions. For example, Texas football banked almost exactly twice as much from contributions ($30.3 million) as it did from conference distributions ($15.3 million), which includes television revenue, according to its annual financial report filed with the NCAA. It’s all storied programs with long histories, national champions who are perennial favorites on the field.ĭespite making all the headlines, television revenue isn’t the largest source of revenue for most college football programs.
Indeed, there are no surprises in the Top -2013, the most recent reporting period. It’s probably no secret who those teams are either-if you follow college football, you could probably name a few teams at the top, such as Texas, Alabama and Notre Dame. It’s no secret that big-time college football produces big-time money for the top programs in the country.