Show me the money: March Madness millions and how much the NCAA makes

The NCAA March Madness basketball tournament is responsible for most of the organization’s revenue. The governing body of college sports in the US pockets about $1 billion from March Madness. Because the NCAA doesn’t control the College Football Playoff and the FBS bowls, they must rely strongly on what the D1 basketball tournament can bring.

Most of the NCAA’s revenue comes from selling its TV rights and ticket sales. Unfortunately, when the COVID pandemic hit, they had to cancel the tournament, resulting in a revenue loss of around $800 million that year.

How much revenue does March Madness make for the NCAA?

In 2022-2023, The NCAA earned $1.28 billion in revenue, almost all of it from March Madness.

Although players do not get directly paid for playing in the tournament, their endorsement deals and sponsorships will benefit from the TV exposure. The NCAA does share revenue with teams and athletic conferences based on schools' performances. The biggest source of all of that income comes from TV broadcast rights, more than $945 million in 2023.

Does the NCAA distribute the money back to the college programs?

The NCAA splits the money among different conferences depending on the number of teams and their preformance. In 2023 the SEC got $34 million and the Big 12 conference split $32 million amongst its teams according to Sportico.

Smaller conferences, such as those listed below, got $2 million in 2023 because of their smaller presence in the tournament:

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The NCAA encourages conferences to equally distribute the money they receive amongst the universities that make up the conference. Conference realignment has made this more complicated for some and more profitable for others.

To sum up, the NCAA pays conferences based on the number of teams in the tournament and their results and the conferences are expected to share that money to all of the schools equally, whether or not their teams made it to the tournament.