Turns out, getting 14 teams into the March Madness field is a pretty good way to make some additional money for your conference.
As one would expect from the SEC, who placed a record 14 schools in this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, the conference also set a record for the amount of money earned from the NCAA’s “unit” system, per Front Office Sports.
For the uninitiated, the NCAA pays out what it calls “units” to each conference participating in the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments. Each unit is worth approximately $2 million, and conferences are awarded units based on how far its schools go in the tournament. Every game a school plays in is worth one unit up through the Final Four. A school that, for instance, loses in the Round of 32 would earn their conference two units, one for each game they played.
So, with the SEC starting with 14 teams in the tournament, the conference secured 13 units from the jump. (A conference’s automatic qualifier does not earn a unit for its first round game, but is paid an amount slightly less than the $2 million that a unit is worth.)
Then, the conference went and won 22 games throughout the tournament, meaning they earned themselves 35 units, or about $70 million. Conferences typically distribute this money evenly among member schools, though certain conferences like the ACC have begun awarding more money to schools who make runs in the tournament.
Most of that money comes from the NCAA’s lucrative media rights deal with CBS Sports and TNT Sports, who pay over $1 billion combined each year to broadcast the tournament.
No doubt, the rich keep getting richer in college athletics.
