The Pac-12 has a chance to set a revenue record for the most money made by a conference in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
With three teams into the Elite Eight – UCLA, Oregon State and USC — a Pac-12 team has guaranteed that at least one of their schools will have played in 18 of the games.
Oregon State plays in its fourth game on Monday. USC plays in its fourth game on Tuesday and UCLA, because it played in the play-in game plays in its fifth game Tuesday. Colorado played in two games and Oregon played in three.
Each game, except the championship game, counts as a unit that the NCAA pays out to the conference for its basketball fund. The basketball fund comes from the tournament’s television deal, which averages $771 million a year.
Each unit this year is worth $337,141. Units are paid out beginning the following year for six consecutive years, meaning that one game played is worth a total of $2,022,846.
That means that the Pac-12 to date will have earned $36.4 million. Two more wins will give the Pac-12 a total of 20 units, which equals a total of $40.4 million.
If that happens, the Pac-12 will surpass the tournament revenue record set by the ACC in 2016.
That year, six of its teams – Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Miami – made the Sweet 16. Two teams — UNC and Syracuse — made the Final Four to earn a total of 25 units.
While the Pac-12 can only earn a max of 23 units, each unit is worth $72,282 more this year than it was in 2016.
Like most conferences, the Pac-12 splits revenue equally among all its member schools.
