Creighton’s move to the Big East is a step up in competition, and it’s also a step up financially. But how much money are we talking about? Numbers aren’t easily available, so I decided to do some back-of-the-napkin figuring to come up a good estimate based on what we do know.
The television deal with Fox was announced at $500 million over 12 years, which presumably will be split evenly among all 10 schools. That works out to $41.6 million a year, or $4.16 million for each school per year. Comparatively, the Missouri Valley Conference television deal paid each school $300,000 a year. By any measure, that’s a massive increase in revenue — Creighton will be bringing in $3.8 million MORE in TV revenue in 2014 than they did in 2013 in the MVC.
Television is just one part of the payout from a conference, however. In the MVC, the payout from NCAA Tournament units was the bulk of the total payout; according to an article in the Springfield News-Leader, commissioner Doug Elgin said those units accounted for 70% of the league’s revenues in an average year.
NCAA Tournament units are a complex beast. Schools get one “unit” for each game they play in the tournament, not including the championship game. The units are paid out over six years, with the amount the unit is worth fluctuating each year depending on NCAA revenues. For example, in 2012 one unit was worth $242,204, but in 2013 that number has grown to $245,514 — and in 2014, it’s expected to grow to $250,106 according to an article in Forbes.
When the NCAA pays the league each year, it calculates units earned over the last five tournaments plus the one just completed. That means when the NCAA cuts the Valley a check this year, the amount will be based on the MVC having accumulated 15 units (pending Wichita State’s game in the Elite 8):
2008 – 1 (Drake)
2009 – 1 (Northern Iowa)
2010 – 3 (Northern Iowa)
2011 – 1 (Indiana State)
2012 – 3 (Wichita State 1, Creighton 2)
2013 – 6 (Creighton 2, Wichita State 4)
In the MVC, each unit is divided eleven ways, with all ten teams getting one piece and the team that earned the unit receiving two pieces. Those 15 units will be worth $3,682,710 to the MVC this year; because Creighton earned four units over the last six years, based on the figures from Forbes we can figure that CU would receive $334,792 plus one extra piece for their four units ($89,277), making the grand total $424,069. I say “would” because Creighton forfeits their claim to those units on July 1 when they join the Big East.
What about the Big East, and specifically, the so-called Catholic Seven? As part of their agreement with the football schools, they were able to keep their NCAA units and bring them into the “new” Big East. Here’s the units they’ve earned over the same period — a whopping 33 units:
2008 – 7 (Georgetown 2, Marquette 2, Villanova 3)
2009 – 7 (Marquette 2, Villanova 5)
2010 – 4 (Marquette 1, Georgetown 1, Villanova 2)
2011 – 5 (St Johns 1, Georgetown 1, Marquette 3)
2012 – 4 (Marquette 2, Georgetown 2)
2013 – 6 (Georgetown 1, Villanova 1, Marquette 4)
That means the Big East, if it had consisted of just those seven schools (and not Louisville, UCONN, Notre Dame, and others who also accumulated units over that span) would have received a payout of $8,101,962. That’s $4.4 million more than the Valley. And it does not include the three new schools, all of which are expected to contend for NCAA berths and thus, additional units (adding Butler and Creighton to the pool this year would add four units to the total, for example).
While it hasn’t been announced how the Big East will divvy up NCAA unit money, the “old” Big East employed a 50/50 split, meaning the school who earned the unit took 50%, and the other schools took an equal percentage of the other 50%. Assuming that’s how the “new” Big East divides it up, they would be sharing $4,050,981 — which comes out to $405,098 for each school.
That’s actually about $19,000 less than CU would have received from the Valley this year — but in future years if Creighton earns NCAA Tournament berth(s), and thus, their own units, they can earn substantially more than they did in the MVC. Using the Forbes figure of each unit being worth $245,514, Creighton would keep half of that amount ($122,757), and receive it for six years. So let’s say, for example, they earned four units over a six-year span — exactly what they earned over the previous six years in the MVC. In that scenario, they’d have an additional $491,028 on top of the $405,098 they receive as their share of the revenue. Now we’re talking a serious bump in revenue; over $900K in NCAA revenue alone, or roughly $150K more than their entire payout from the MVC.
Here’s a summary:
MVC
Television – $300,000
NCAA units – $424,069
Total – $724,069
Big East
Television – $4,160,000
NCAA units (assuming CU earns four units) – $896,126
Total – $5,056,126
According to research conducted by the Omaha World-Herald, in men’s basketball Creighton spent $4.4 million in 2011, and the average Big East school spent $7.5 million. The increased TV and NCAA unit revenue of over $5 million helps bridge that gap and then some. Overall, Creighton’s budget was reported by that World-Herald article to be $15 million, while the average Big East school was $27.5 million — though that’s deceiving because several of those schools offer more sports than CU does, bumping their total expenses up.
Creighton’s cost of competing will absolutely rise, perhaps substantially, in the Big East. But it’s clear from these numbers that the increased revenue they will receive should more than adequately give them the resources to do so.
