SEC distributes $584.2 million for 2015-16 fiscal year
Published 3:13 pm Thursday, February 2, 2017
The Southeastern Conference’s 14 member schools cashed in Thursday.
The conference announced approximately $584.2 million in revenue for the 2015-16 fiscal year that’s been divided among the schools, paying out more than $40.4 million to each institution. It’s an increase of nearly $8 million more than each school received in 2014-15 when the league’s revenue total was $475.8 million.
The 2015-16 year, the first in which the SEC paid scholarships covering student-athletes’ full cost of attendance, ended Aug. 31, 2016.
“Each of our institutions sponsor from 16 to 22 intercollegiate athletics teams and offer their student-athletes in those sports the highest level of commitment to their athletics and academic experience,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. “This distribution from the SEC helps our universities’ athletics programs continue to fully support broad-based opportunities for thousands of female and male student-athletes in all sports.”
The league’s revenue total includes $565.9 million distributed from the league office and a collective $18.3 million kept by the schools that played in bowl games a season ago in order to offset those travel costs and other bowl-related expenses. Each school’s cut does not include the bowl money retained by participants or the nearly $1 million paid out by the NCAA for academic enhancement that’s also divided among the schools.