March Madness will officially begin on Tuesday and more than hundred teams of men and women will be participating in the games. According to Front Office Sports, the SEC and Big 12 will have more clubs in the tournament in men’s categories.
As per the report, the NCAA draws $900 million in annual media rights from both CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery. They assign "payment units" to all the thirty-two conferences that participate in the men"s tournament. Extra units are also distributed for "at-large bids" and institutions that advance to further rounds until the Final Four.
The unit value in the recent season has been $2 million and is given to the conferences over a period of six years. In the last campaign, SEC was above all other conferences, as per FOS via The Athletic. This year, the conferences have been given the stated amounts.
March Madness officially begins Tuesday in Dayton, with 104 men’s and women’s games playing out across the country over the next week.
Conferences receive roughly $2M for each team, and even more payments are allocated based on advancing through the bracket.
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) March 18, 2024
Big 12 with 8 bids and $16 million, SEC with 8 bids and $16 million, Big Ten with 6 bids and $12 million, Mountain West with 6 bids and $12 million, ACC with 5 bids and $10 million, and the Pac-12 with 4 bids and $8 million. The Big East with 3 bids and $6 million, American with 2 bids and $4 million, Atlantic 10 with 2 bids and $4 million, and WCC with 2 bids and $4 million.
Greg Sankey, the SEC Commissioner, shared via ESPN, "We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers [from smaller conferences], and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion."
However, institutions competing in women’s tournaments do not currently receive any revenue sharing units. The NCAA has also further stated that this might alter next year as the giant network, ESPN’s new media rights agreement for collegiate championships commences. The novel agreement places $65 million in annual value on women’s March Madness.
