Clemson, more ACC deep runs mean biggest NCAA Tournament payday for conference |
Clemson was among four ACC teams to make the Sweet 16 and three to advance to the Elite Eight, which means the most NCAA Tournament revenue for any league this season.
Sportico reports that the ACC will receive "roughly $34 million" by way of the complicated unit revenue distribution system for the high-grossing tournament. That is despite having only the fourth-most teams (5), edging out the projected distributions for bid leaders in the SEC (8; $32 million) and Big 12 (8; $30 million). Complicated as referenced, that money doesn't immediately go to member schools, however. Per Sportico: "Units are distributed over six years, generating payments to the conferences in annual chunks starting the year after the tournament in which the units are earned. For units earned in 2024, that starts with a payment of roughly $349,000 next year and ends with a payment of roughly $335,000 in 2030 (the value eventually goes down because the canceled 2020 tournament concentrated payments for the following six years)." For conferences highly impacted by realignment, some kind of settlement must be made, and in the Pac-12's case, that means that a school like Arizona leaving for the Big 12 next year will not receive the future NCAA Tourney revenue from their 2024 Sweet 16 run. It all goes to what's left of the Pac-12, which is currently just Oregon State and Washington State. The ACC currently has 15 member schools and will expand to 18 with the addition of SMU, Cal and Stanford in July. Sixth-seeded Clemson made its first Elite Eight since 1980 before falling to 4-seed Alabama, 87-82, in Los Angeles on Saturday. NC State advanced to the Final Four as an 11-seed after topping 4-seed Duke again in the South Region final. UNC, a No. 1 seed, made the West Sweet 16 but also lost to the Crimson Tide in LA.
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