The money behind March Madness
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The Southeastern Conference was absent from the men's Elite Eight, but that didn't stop the conference from winning a different competition this March: most money earned.
How it works: Every March Madness, the NCAA distributes a portion of its revenues to member conferences based on how their schools fare in the men’s basketball tournament.
- Those payments are determined by "units," which are earned for each game a school plays in, not including the National Championship — meaning this year's haul is set.
- 132 total units were up for grabs, with each one worth roughly $2 million, per Sportico ($). Conferences will distribute the money evenly to schools, who will decide how to use it.
By the numbers: The SEC's eight tournament teams played 17 games, netting $34 million. It's the first time in at least two decades that the SEC led all conferences.
- The other big winners were the Big 12 ($32M), Big East ($30M), Big Ten ($28M) and Atlantic Coast Conference ($24M).
- Four other leagues made at least $10 million: Mountain West ($16M), Pac-12 ($14M), West Coast ($12M) and Conference USA ($10M), the latter of which came entirely from Florida Atlantic's run to the Final Four.
The big picture: For Power 5 conferences, March Madness money is merely a fraction of their total revenue. The SEC distributed $721.8 million to its 14 members for the 2021-22 fiscal year, with most of that money coming from college sports' real cash cow: football.
