INDIANAPOLIS — There’s more than just school pride and bragging rights to all that bellyaching over who might be in and who might be out of the first 12-team field for the College Football Playoff.
Try the more than $115 million that will be spread across the conferences at the end of the season, all depending on who gets in and which teams go the farthest.
According to the College Football Playoff website, the dozen teams simply making the bracket earn their conferences $4 million each. Another $4 million goes to conferences with teams that reach the quarterfinals. And then there’s $6 million more for teams that make the semifinals, plus another $6 million for those who play for the title.
Most of this bonanza comes courtesy of ESPN, which is forking over $1.3 billion a year to televise the new postseason for the Football Bowl Subdivision, NCAA Division I’s highest tier. A lot of that money is already earmarked — more goes to the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference than the Atlantic Coast Conference or Big 12 — but a lot is up for grabs in the 11 games that will play out from the opening round on Dec. 20 to the final on Jan. 20.
In all, the teams that make the title game will bring $20 million to their conferences, all of which distribute that money, along with billions in TV revenue and other sources, in different ways. In the fiscal year of 2022-23, the Big Ten, for instance, reported revenue of nearly $880 million and distributed about $60.5 million to most of its members.