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The Big Ten Conference took in $880 million in the fiscal year stretching from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023—the period that immediately preceded the league’s rich new television deal—according to tax returns obtained by Sportico.
Nevertheless, that haul earned the Big Ten the top spot in college conference revenue, usurping the $853 million the Big Ten’s fellow super league, the SEC, took in in FY23. Both conferences are threatening to leap the billion-dollar bar in the not-too-distant fiscal years.
The Big Ten distributed around $60 million to each of its members—with 2014 joiners Maryland and Rutgers earning slightly less than their cohorts. The conference also spent nearly $5 million on legal fees and $439,647 on lobbying activities to “discuss student-athlete initiatives with elected officials.”
Former Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, who retired from his post in June 2020, was still the conference’s highest-paid employee, earning a total of $5.8 million. About half of Delany’s take-home was from bonus or incentive compensation, while the other half was reported as retirement or deferred compensation. Delany continues to be on the Big Ten’s payroll as an outside consultant and was paid $400,000 as an independent contractor in FY23.
The conference’s highest-paid independent contractor was law firm Mayer Brown, which earned $2.2 million.
Meanwhile, Delany’s successor, Kevin Warren, received a total of $3.7 million. Warren left the position in April 2023 to take the job as president and CEO of the Chicago Bears. Warren was paid a bonus for overseeing the league’s new TV deal, but that amount was not disclosed on this return.
As Sportico previously reported, the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 had been planning to release their tax filings together at the end of this week. However, the Big Ten agreed to release its Monday after Sportico showed up at the conference’s Rosemont, Ill., headquarters to request the documents. In most circumstances, the IRS requires organizations that are registered as 501(c)(3) federal charities to immediately provide certain of its filings to the public upon an in-person request.
The FY23 return encapsulates the final 12 months of the Big Ten’s previous broadcast rights deal, before it signed a $7 billion, 7-year agreement with Fox, CBS and NBC that commenced on July 1, 2023. The period also covers the final 10 months of former commissioner Warren’s up-and-down-and-up tenure, which, in addition to the TV deal, included the near-cancellation of the 2020 football season on account of COVID-19; and the surprise snagging of USC and UCLA from the Pac-12.