Is thos school direct funds or 3rd party or combined?
In 2025, each school in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) is estimated to receive approximately $7 million annually from media rights deals. This figure is part of the AAC's current media rights agreement, which generates roughly $83.3 million per year for the conference.
Key Points:
The AAC's media rights deal with ESPN is worth approximately $1 billion over 12 years.
The deal runs through the 2031-32 academic year and provides ESPN with rights to all of the AAC's live programming, with a few exceptions like select basketball games on CBS and some Navy football games on CBS Sports Network.
This revenue is significantly less than what schools in the "Power Four" conferences receive, such as the Big 12, which nets roughly $32 million per institution, and the Big Ten, which distributes around $75 million annually per school.
In addition to media rights revenue, AAC schools are also preparing for a new era of revenue sharing with athletes.
The AAC has established a "Minimum Investment Program" requiring schools to share at least $10 million in cumulative additional benefits with athletes over a three-year period, starting in the 2025-26 academic year.
This initiative is driven by the settlement of the House antitrust lawsuit, which allows schools to offer scholarships to entire rosters and share a projected maximum of $20.5 million annually with their athletes.
Revenue Sharing Details:
The AAC's Minimum Investment Program allows schools to share revenue with athletes through various benefits, including scholarships, academic-related expenses, and direct payments.
Each school has flexibility in how they reach the $10 million minimum over three years, with the possibility of exceeding that amount.
The revenue sharing model also includes a tiered system for basketball, with a fund starting at $15 million in 2025 and growing to $25 million over three years, representing 41% of the women's basketball value in the NCAA's new media rights deal with ESPN.
In summary, while AAC schools receive a considerable amount from media rights, they are also navigating a changing financial landscape with the introduction of revenue sharing with athletes, which will further impact the distribution of funds within the conference.
Just read the same article on SI: So $7M not the $10M promised when UNT, FIU, FAU and UAB were invited. The conference will require every institution, except Army and Navy (which are precluded from providing athlete NIL payments due to federal law), to provide a minimum of $10 million in revenue-sharing funds over the next three years.
Looks like programs that are similar to SBC schools, FIU, UNT, FAU and UAB will have a hard time making the cut unless big money will step up. In other words, they could be right back in the SBC by another name by 2028.
$10MM in the AAC is massive number to meet on annually. Even if SBC members agreed upon $2MM annual payments to athletes that sounds unsustainable. Hope taxpayers are not on the hook for player payments at public universities. Might vary from State to State.
NIL is not NIL. What a mess.
These estimates assume schools use the 22% revenue sharing benchmark which was relied upon to arrive at the initial annual cap in House v NCAA.....
May need an increase in total revenue to be able to spend 10 million, not just a reallocation from other expenses
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