The Big Ten Conference amassed nearly $70 million from NCAA distributions that will be paid for team appearances and performances in the 2026 men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball tournaments.<\/p>\n
That is by far the most among conferences, largely because the Big Ten swept the national championships \u2014 Michigan won the men\u2019s and UCLA the women\u2019s \u2014 and had Illinois advance to the men\u2019s Final Four.<\/p>\n
The NCAA, which has multibillion-dollar broadcast deals for the two tournaments, since 1991 has rewarded conferences for their number of tournament bids and how far those teams advance in the men\u2019s tournament. A similar system for the women\u2019s tournament began in 2025.<\/p>\n
The dollars are piling up:<\/p>\n
\u2014 For this year\u2019s tournaments, nine men\u2019s teams and 12 women\u2019s teams from the Big Ten combined to make at least $69.4 million, with $63 million coming from the men\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Southeastern Conference, which had 10 teams in each tournament, totaled at least $56.2 million ($50.4 million for men, $5.8 million for women).<\/p>\n
\u2014 Distributions will total at least $42.9 million for the Big 12, $34.2 million for the Atlantic Coast Conference and $22.2 million for the Big East.<\/p>\n
The NCAA sends payments directly to the conferences, which distribute the money among their teams according to their policies. Payments for the 2026 tournament will begin in April 2027.<\/p>\n
How the NCAA pays tournament teams is based on \u2018units\u2019<\/p>\n
Teams in each tournament earn what\u2019s known as a \u201cunit\u201d for making the field of 68 and an additional unit for each round in which it appears. The national champion is awarded an extra unit. The value of a unit increases each year. A portion of revenue from the tournaments\u2019 broadcast agreements are directed to distribution payments, 24% for the men and 41% for the women.<\/p>\n
The estimated value of a unit for the 2026 men\u2019s tournament will be about $350,000, an NCAA spokeswoman said, and that amount will be paid annually for six years. So a single unit earned in 2026 would have a total value of at least $2.1 million over those six years and probably more because Division I distribution funds \u2014 including the basketball funds \u2014 are scheduled to increase each year, typically by 2.9%.<\/p>\n
For the women\u2019s tournament, full funding for units earned will be achieved in 2027. Payments for each unit earned will be made for three years rather than six. The unit value was $75,000 for 2026 and will decrease to about $63,000 next year as part of the NCAA\u2019s formula for getting the fund fully up and running. Using $63,000 as an estimate for the 2028 value, a single unit earned in 2026 would be worth at least $201,000 by the time it is paid off over three years.<\/p>\n
Breaking down the money from 2026 March Madness<\/p>\n
The Big Ten\u2019s nine teams in the men\u2019s tournament appeared in 29 games. Michigan earned $14.7 million for the conference by playing in six games and receiving a seventh unit for winning the championship. Illinois earned five units for making the Final Four ($10.5 million) and Iowa and Purdue four apiece for reaching the Elite Eight ($8.4 million each).<\/p>\n
The Big Ten landed 12 teams in the women\u2019s tournament, and they combined to play in 31 games. UCLA earned just over $1.4 million by playing in six games and receiving an extra unit for winning the championship. Michigan\u2019s four games earned $804,000 and Minnesota\u2019s three earned $603,000.<\/p>\n
The championships in men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball continued what\u2019s been a banner 2025-26 for the Big Ten. Indiana won the conference\u2019s third straight College Football Playoff, and other national championships have been won in men\u2019s wrestling (Penn State), women\u2019s ice hockey (Wisconsin), men\u2019s water polo (UCLA), men\u2019s soccer (Washington) and field hockey (Northwestern).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Big Ten Conference amassed nearly $70 million from NCAA distributions that will be paid for team appearances…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-706983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116377572865307210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}