Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby is optimistic that the college football season will begin as scheduledGETTY IMAGES
The Big 12 will "deliver an average of $37.7 million to each school," which is "about $1.1 million less than the conference paid out to member schools last season," according to Blair Kerkhoff of the K.C. STAR. The league "lost an estimated $6.6 million" when the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments were canceled. Still, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said that he was "'bullish' on the idea that the college football season would begin as scheduled around Labor Day" (K.C. STAR, 5/30). In Dallas, Chuck Carlton wrote, "Normally, the announcement of Big 12 revenue and the shares for individual members is a high point of spring meetings," as the number has been "going up, up, up, keeping the Big 12 comfortably third behind the Big Ten and SEC in terms of per school revenue." But this year, the revenue number "ran into the COVID-19 wall." Bowlsby said that the "biggest factors" for the decline in pay outs were the "cancellation of March Madness and the reduction in NCAA revenue (about $14 million) and the cancellation of conference tournaments, especially the Big 12 basketball tournaments in Kansas City (about $18 million)." Carlton noted otherwise, the average Big 12 share "would have been more than $40 million for the first time" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 5/30).
