Analyzing Big East Fiscal Year 2024 Financials

I’m not an accountant. And I don’t even play on on TV. But as an avid fan of Marquette and the Big East, I’ve fallen into this weird niche of excitedly anticipating late May, as it means we get a chance to see what the conference made and how they made it.

And even though it hasn’t been posted publicly yet, the Big East was kind enough to send a digital copy of the 2023 fiscal year 990 tax form for us to analyze. 

What we found was a slight increase in media revenue, NCAA Tournament revenue and conference championship revenue, adding up to a 4% jump in total revenue from $87.2M in 2023 to $90.7M in 2024.

On the other side, the conference’s expenses were up 7.5% from $82.4M in 2023 to $88.5M in 2024 due to increased costs in production, tournaments and ultimately, higher payouts to the individual schools. The payouts to the programs were up 3.1% over 2023, and set a new record at $59.8M.

Here is the year over year look at the revenue breakdown.

Big East Distributions Per Team

For those unfamiliar the Big East usually distributes 65% or so of its revenue in a given year to individual schools that make up the conference. While we don’t know the exact formula the Big East uses, we do know there is an unequal distribution based on NCAA tournament success. Which means that teams that earn more credits (revenue) for the conference in the NCAA tournament get a larger share of them. It’s not an even 11-way split.

UConn, fresh off its 2nd consecutive national title in this reporting period, earned a record $8.3M payout from the conference, beating the previous record of $7.3M held by Villanova in 2022. Creighton and Marquette both broke the $6M mark as well.

Big East Historical Distributions

Putting this year’s numbers in context, the Big East saw a 3% jump in total payouts, and set a new record for the conference in a single year.

Since 2013, when the league was reborn, Villanova has amassed $62.6M, about $10M higher than the next closest program, Marquette with $52.8M.

Revenue Sources

While it would seem to be a given that payouts continue to increase, the Big East as a whole is incredibly dependent on NCAA Tournament performance, compared to other power conferences, with 28% of total revenue coming via NCAA performance.

On the media side, 2025 was the final year under the original FOX Sports contract, and the conference will begin a new one in July. While we do know the general makeup of the contract, we won’t have full details from a tax perspective until 2027.

How does the the Big East TV contract compare to other power conferences?

For now, here’s the incremental bump we do see from the tax documents.

Expenses

Outside of school payouts, conference tournaments, production and salaries were the big expenses for the Big East. Tournaments were up 6.4% to $6.9M while production costs bumped up 5.5% to $2.4M.

Val Ackerman’s salary saw a big jump in 2024 to $1.8M which looks to be driven via a $520K bonus. There is no explanation in the documents, though the timing could be related to the new media contract being signed.

Conclusion

The NCAA is set to be upended in the very near future, but for now, the Big East is doing well for a non-football playing league. The House settlement will bring some pretty big cuts to the NCAA revenue, which will only be somewhat offset with the additional TV revenue.

All in all, the conference is healthy enough, but the post 2030 future still has plenty of questions.

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