The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

UI officials expect lower payout than 2011 from Big Ten bowl revenue

While the Hawkeye football team will not attend a bowl game this year, the the Iowa Athletics Department will still receive a payout from the Big Ten.

The Big Ten pools the payouts from all bowls in which a Big Ten team participates. At the start of each fiscal year, the Big Ten lays out the amount of money that will be given if the conference fills all Big Ten bowl slots. In fiscal 2012, the UI was guaranteed around $2.2 million by the Big Ten. The UI actually received approximately $2.6 million.

The UI budgeted $1.8 million for travel and other expenses in conjunction with the Insight Bowl.

“The overwhelming majority of the positive difference of $385,183 is attributable to the Big Ten having a second team participate in the Bowl Championship Series,” said Rick Klatt, the Iowa associate athletics director for external relations.

However, this season, the Big Ten will only send seven teams to bowl games. The conference has contracts with eight bowls, which guarantee a predetermined payout to the conference. While there were nine teams with at least the six wins that capture bowl eligibility, Penn State and Ohio State are both ineligible to attend bowl games this season.

Klatt said the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl and the $600,000 that the bowl guaranteed the Big Ten would not be paid out, as no Big Ten team will play in the game.

“Clearly, it will have an effect [on revenue],” Klatt said.

For the first time in seven years, only one Big Ten team will play in a BCS game. While the UI will still receive its share, it will not garner a surplus like the one last season.

“We don’t plan to have a second team in the BCS,” Klatt said. “That extra revenue falls into the category of the surplus.”

While Ohio State’s season ended without a bowl due to a ban handed down by the NCAA, it will still receive its guaranteed cut of the revenue.

“All it does is keep us from playing,” said Ben Jay, senior associate athletics director at Ohio State. “[The ban] does not affect our share of the revenue.”

Jay said Ohio State did not keep its net surplus from the Big Ten’s bowl revenues last season.

“We’ve already paid the financial penalty,” he said. “We donated about $320,000 to six different charities.”

Penn State, which is ineligible for bowl games for the next four years, will not receive a share of the revenue until it is bowl-eligible once again.               

In an article released by the New York Times in July, Pete Thamel reported that the NCAA fined Penn State $13 million, which was approximately equal to the revenue it would have received from the Big Ten.

Klatt said he fully endorses the revenue-sharing system in spite of the conference’s inability to field eight bowl eligible teams this season.

“The methodology in place is one of the reasons why the conference is so strong,” he said. “Time is proving that the Big Ten’s model is the one that conferences should gravitate toward.”

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