Jon Wilner
The Big 12 will generate a conference record $710 million in gross revenue in the 2026 fiscal year. We know this because Commissioner Brett Yormark disclosed the amount late last week at the conclusion of the conference’s spring meetings in Frisco, Texas.
What about the number at the other end of the funnel — the number that matters more than any other: the amount distributed to the campuses?
We don’t know that figure because Yormark was mum on the subject.
“We’re not discussing the net distributions, ” he said, although it will “also be the highest in Big 12 history, exceeding our projected per-school distribution.”
The official amount sent to the campuses will be revealed next May, when the Big 12 discloses its federal tax filings for FY2026.
But there’s nothing stopping the Hotline from taking an educated guess based on the figures available in the conference’s tax documents for FY2025.
Last year, which was the Big 12’s first as a 16-team entity, it reported $610.9 million in gross revenue.
Of that, it distributed $557 million to the schools, or 91.2 percent.
The specifics depended on membership status: The conference had full-share schools and half-share schools.
The former group featured the eight continuing members and the four added from the Pac-12. They collected between $37.9 million on the low end, to Utah, and $43 million on the high end, to Arizona State.
The variance was based on a slew of factors, including ASU’s participation in the College Football Playoff, but the average amount to the 12 full-share members was $39.5 million.
The latter collection featured the schools that joined the Big 12 in the summer of 2023: UCF, Brigham Young, Cincinnati and Houston. They received half shares in FY2025. But as with the full-share members, the specific amounts varied slightly.
In total, the quartet of half-share members collected $83.2 million.
Remove that from the total distributed and we are left with $473.8. Splitting that 12 ways leaves us with the aforementioned average of $39.5 million for the full-share members.
Anyhow, that was the situation in FY2025. Although the conference is adding $100 million to its coffers, the breakdown from last year helps inform our estimation of the campus distributions for FY2026 that won’t be available until next spring.
The top-line number: $710 million.
If we assume the same percentage of the gross revenue (91.2) is being sent to the schools in FY2026 as was the case last year, then the total distributed is $647.5 million, also a conference record.
However, there is one crucial difference in FY2026: Instead of 12 full-share members and four half-share members, there are 16 full-share schools.
In effect, two full shares have been added.
Dividing our estimated distribution amount ($647.5 million) by 16, the average sent to the schools is $40.5 million.
That’s $1 million more than the average sent to the full-share members in FY2025.
In the world of power conference payouts, that’s not much of a bump.
Now, to be abundantly clear on two matters:
— These are merely Hotline estimates.
There could be an aspect of the distribution process that allows more of the FY2026 gross revenue to be funneled to the schools.
For instance, what if the percentage of gross revenue distributed is not the same as in FY2025? What if the raw dollars remain constant year-over-year?
In FY2025, the conference withheld $53.9 million of the gross revenue. If that amount were removed from the FY2026 total, then $656.1 million would be available for the schools — or $41 million per school.
— The specific amounts will vary by the campus.
Our hunch is that several schools will be closer to $45 million and a few will be closer to $37 million. Texas Tech, for example, likely will receive more than the average due to its CFP appearance in December.
But the average should be somewhere in the low-$40 million range which, again, isn’t a substantial increase from the average of $39.5 million for the full-share members in FY2025.
(Typically, media rights contracts have escalator clauses that increase the year-over-year amounts by 4 or 5 percent. The Big 12’s deals with Fox and ESPN likely follow that blueprint, but the impact of the increase is limited by the change in share status for BYU, UCF, Houston and Cincinnati.)
Meanwhile, the Big Ten’s full-share schools are expected to clear $80 million in conference distributions based on their payouts from FY2025, and schools in the SEC likely will be above $75 million.
The ACC’s full-share members probably will clear $50 million.
The Big 12 has a revenue problem relative to its Power Four peers, which isn’t exactly a new flash.
“How do we create value for our member institutions? It’s the No. 1 thing I think about when I wake up,” Yormark told reporters at the conclusion of the meetings last week in Frisco. “We’re doing everything we can.
“You think about the conference business. There’s not as much variable revenue as you’d like, but we’re taking as much advantage of the variable pieces of the business as we can.
“Our commercial business is thriving. We’re very aggressive there, and we’re just looking to innovate, find new ways to better resource our institutions. And we’ll continue to push forward in that direction.”
If the schools find themselves desperate for the cash needed to compete with their power conference peers, they have an option: the private cash available within the Big 12’s multi-pronged partnership with RedBird Capital.
At its core, the deal gives the conference office $12.5 million to use for revenue-generating endeavors and creates a valuable strategic partnership.
It also offers each campus the option to receive $30 million in funding from RedBird at an interest rate believed to be in the high single digits.
Thus far, nobody has accepted.
“Having access to capital is always a good thing,” Yormark said. “We look at that as a safety net for our schools when and if they want to do it. They have a year to tap into it.
“We all know things change in our ecosystem pretty quickly. Although they might not want it today, that might be different in six months or 12 months from now. So we’ll wait and see.”
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