The final business year for the Power Five conferences, as college sports fans have come to know them, was not exactly business as usual. With schools’ affiliations already beginning to change, and various legal entanglements going on, three of the five conferences reported declines in total revenue on their federal tax records for their 2024 fiscal years – and the Power Five’s combined total revenue very narrowly declined.
That’s far from a cause for alarm, but it is the first such year-over-year decrease in a non-pandemic-affected year since USA TODAY Sports began compiling these records by obtaining data reaching back to fiscal 2011, when the Big East Conference still was playing football and there were six power conferences. In most years, the annual increase has been at least $150 million.
And that may well return to being the power-conference norm, as the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences appear headed toward revenue booms for their ongoing 2025 fiscal years that likely will take each to at least $1 billion, and the Pac-12’s demise and dispersal will help boost income for the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12.
