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Since sending a record 14 teams to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this year, the SEC has smashed multiple conference records in the sport. The most recent: the amount of prize payouts the NCAA distributes based on participation and prowess in the Big Dance.
The conference has earned $70 million in NCAA “units,” more than any other league in NCAA history.
“In the SEC, we believe the financial results follow the underlying work, and we remain laser focused on our work,” SEC associate commissioner of men’s basketball, Garth Glissman, tells Front Office Sports.
The NCAA pays conferences one unit, worth roughly $2 million, for each school that makes the tournament outside of the automatic qualifier (the conference tournament champion). So while 14 SEC schools punched tickets to men’s March Madness, 13 earned units—starting the conference off with $26 million in payouts before the tournament even began.
Then, schools earn another unit for every win they get in the tournament all the way up to the championship game. SEC schools totalled 22 wins, a record in itself. Auburn and Florida earned the final two units for the SEC after securing their Final Four berths. There are no units awarded for making the championship game or winning the tournament (though the SEC is guaranteed at least one team in the title game, given that Auburn and Florida are playing each other in the Final Four).
That’s not all: Conferences also get a slice of the Equal Conference Fund for their automatic qualifier. But the prize payout system is much less—around $55 million is distributed equally among leagues, so each conference earns slightly less than the value of one unit.
Conferences don’t receive all their units right away however. They’re split up and distributed to the conference on a six-year rolling basis. But even with a slight delay, they offer major benefits to the leagues and incentives for investing in men’s basketball.
