Penn State, powered by its College Football Playoff semifinal appearance two seasons ago, received $88.92 million from the Big Ten Conference as part of the league’s revenue distribution for 2025, according to a pair of national reports. Only Ohio State, which won the CFP last season, received more, at $91.55 million.
Overall, the Big Ten brought in a college sports conference-record $1.47 billion in 2025, thanks to media rights deals worth more than $1 billion a year. Indiana was third in monies received, at $81 million, while the average member of the 18-school Big Ten Conference received $76.1 million.
Both Oregon and Washington, latecomers to the Big Ten party after the former Pac-12 brethren joined in 2024, received barely more than half of what the Buckeyes got.
The 2024-25 numbers are based on reporting by Adam Rittenberg of ESPN and Scott Dochterman of The Athletic. Both are longtime respected veterans of the Big Ten beat, and their reporting is based on tax filings made by the Big Ten.
A big reason for the 1-2 big money finish by Ohio State and Penn State: The 2024-25 football season was the first for a 12-team CFP, and four Big Ten teams made the playoffs (Ohio State, PSU, Indiana and Oregon). Ohio State and Penn State advanced to the semifinals, where Penn State lost 27-24 to Notre Dame, and the Buckeyes were the 2024 season national champions.
Here are 10 key 2024-25 fiscal year highlights (and lowlights) for Penn State and the Big Ten.
1. BIG TEN DISTRIBUTION WENT LIKE THIS:
2. BIG BUCKEYES: Ohio State’s athletic department brought in $336.1 million in revenues in fiscal year July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025. The $91.55 million it received from the Big Ten represents 27% of its overall gross revenues, while Penn State athletics’ $88.9 million share was nearly 35% of its overall revenues of over $254 million. Ohio State’s athletics revenues for that one year were $82 million more than Penn State’s. Ouch.
3. PENN STATE’S BIG TEN TAKE: Penn State’s share of revenue from the Big Ten was $18.8 million back in 2008 (as far back as my records go). That share has grown by a staggering $70 million (370%) since then. Year-by-most years, Penn State received the following amount from the Big Ten Conference:
2008 – $18.8 million
2013 – $25.7 million
2017 – $36 million
2018 – $51 million
2019 – $55.6 million
2020 – $54.3 million
2021 (COVID) – $37 million
2022 – $58.8 million
2023 – $60.5 million
2024 – $63.2 million
2025 – $88.9 million
4. PSU NEEDED THE DOUGH: Athletic director Pat Kraft’s ICA team needed every Big Ten penny, apparently. Penn State athletics showed a “surplus” of only $223,679 in its 2024-25 filing to the NCAA (see it here). That’s a pretty thin margin of .00087. Revenues were $254.868 million and expenses were $254.644 million.
5. PENN STATE’S BIGGEST EXPENSES? Kraft spent $132 million on labor in 2024-25 — 52% of Penn State’s overall ICA expenditures. According to paperwork filed with the NCAA, Penn State spent the most money in these areas, not counting debt costs and undelineated operating expenses:
1. $47.54 mil – Coaching salaries, bonuses
2. $43.74 mil – Student-athletes ($24.37 mil student aid, $18.37 mil NIL revenue share)
3. $41.15 mil – Support staff/admins
4. $16.39 mil – Game expenses
5. $10.1 million – Team travel
5a. Not included: Penn State athletics’ debt of $534 million, due to its multi-year $700-million renovation of 66-year-old Beaver Stadium, slated to be completed in time for the 2027 college football season.
5b. Athlete compensation: I lump student aid and revenue-sharing in one category. I haven’t seen anyone else do it this way, but it’s all compensation in my book. I value a college education, and despite what you hear and read, a large majority of Penn State’s athletes do too. It’s just that with the talk of revenue-sharing has diminished — or eliminated — the true dollar cost (and value, TBH) of a college education. And, as a guy who has taught hundreds and hundreds of PSU athletes in 26 years at Penn State, I…still…think college is supposed to be about education, even if there are some athletes pulling down big bucks (including the star in my class last semester who made 5x what I do). Kraft & Co. came up with $24 mil for scholarships for 617 students-athletes in 2024-2025 — most of whom who did not receive a single rev-share dollar. Pat Pat on the back for this, truly.
5c. The coaches still got more than the players.
6. PAYING PENN STATE PLAYERS WAS NOT NILL: In 2024-25, Penn State paid its athletes $18.368 million for what the NCAA terms as “Institutional NIL Revenue Sharing” — essentially pay-for-play. This was for the 2024 football season, and the winter 2025 basketball, wrestling and hockey seasons. It does not include outside deals (i.e., Drew Allar shilling pick-up trucks) or money provided by the Penn State collective, Happy Valley United. Rev share paid, by sports:
6a. Millions: Football – $13.339 million. Men’s basketball – $3.004 million. Wrestling – $1.450 million. 6b. Thousands: Baseball – $300,000. Men’s ice hockey – $95,000. Men’s lacrosse – $50,000. Men’s tennis – $10,000. Women’s volleyball – $10,000.
7. BIGGEST BUCKS? BIG TEN: The Big Ten Conference upped its gross revenues by over a half-billion dollars in one year, thanks to a boatload of new TV contracts, going from $928 million in 2023-24 to $1.47 billion in 2024-25. That makes the B10 the richest conference in college sports.
The Big Ten distributed $1.37 billion to its members in the latest disbursement — meaning the B10 kept a cool $100 mil for itself. The SEC distributed $1.03 billion, giving each member an average of $72.4 million. The Big 12 (welcome back, Andy Kotelnicki) took in $460 million, while the ACC — home of James Franklin, Manny Diaz and Bill O’Brien, an amazing sentence to type out — has not released its distribution for 2025 revenue. In 2023-24, it generated $711 million overall.
8. COMMISSIONING BIG DOLLARS: Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti, who was hired in May 2023, made $4.5 million, per the Big Ten tax filings. Jim Delany, who led the conference from 1989 to 2020, received more than $6.4 million, from bonuses, deferred compensation and consulting fees.
9. EX-PAC-12 DOLLARS AND SENSE: UCLA and USC, which were admitted to the Big Ten in 2022 and officially joined in 2024, both received full shares. Oregon and Washington, which were admitted in 2023 and joined in 2024, receive 50% shares through 2029-30, with $1 million annual escalators. All four schools were members of the Pacific-12 Conference, back when it mattered. Market size and timing dictated a good — or bad — part of those deals: USC and UCLA adroitly jumped a full year before their former Pac-12 brethren. And…
9a. DMA matters: Both USC and UCLA are located in Los Angeles, the second-largest designated market area (DMA) in the United States, trailing only New York City. The Seattle-Tacoma DMA, home of the U of Washington, ranks No. 13, while Portland, Ore., is 110 miles from Eugene and ranks No. 23. Here’s why the Big Ten gets more TV money than the SEC — the Big Ten has a foothold in seven of the Top 10 DMA markets:
BIG TEN: NYC (1), Los Angeles (2), Chicago (3), Philadelphia (4), San Francisco (6), Boston (9), Washington, D.C. (10).
SEC: Dallas-Fort Worth (5), Atlanta (7), Houston (8).
10. WATCH THIS: Three Big Ten schools were ranked among the Top 7 most-watched college football programs from 2021-25. Penn State, with over #800k living and loving alumni, is part of that Big 3. According to Zach Miller, who runs Run It Back With Zach on Medium.com, Ohio State is the most popular college team on television, averaging 5.5 million viewers per game on TV over the most-recent five-year period. Full rankings here.
10a. The TV numbers show that Michigan (4.44 mil) was No. 4, while Penn State (3.08 mil) was No. 7. Oregon (2.45 mil), providing value nationally to the Big Ten beyond its market size, was No. 13. The SEC, with 10 of the Top 15 most-watched college football teams, was led by No. 2 Alabama (5.46 mil) and No. 3 Georgia (4.63 mil).
10b. The Big Ten had 10 schools in the Top 25, including Nebraska (16), USC (19), Wisconsin (22), Iowa (23) and Michigan State (24). The SEC and Big Ten had 21 of the 25 of the most-watched college football programs; outliers were Notre Dame (9), Florida State (17), Clemson (20) and Miami, Fla. (21).
