Washington’s run to college football’s national championship game has earned $11.7 million for the Pac-12 conference. It’s unclear if the Huskies will see any of it.
Every year, the College Football Playoff pays conferences for their participation in the biggest year-end bowl games. Most leagues, the Pac-12 included, typically split that money evenly amongst their members. But there’s nothing typical about this college football season, and with the Pac-12 splintering next summer, league members have been fighting over incoming revenue.
First, the numbers: The CFP pays leagues $6 million for each team it places in the semifinals and $4 million for each member that plays in a New Year’s Six bowl that’s not a semifinal. There’s an additional $2.85 million to cover expenses for each game played. This year, the Pac-12’s CFP bowl haul is $18.55 million—$11.7 million from Washington’s run and $6.85 million from Oregon’s Fiesta Bowl berth.
Last month, the Pac-12’s 10 departing schools (which includes Washington and Oregon) reached an agreement in principle to evenly share the majority of this year’s revenue across all 12 members, leaving the two remaining schools in control of all future income. The CFP distributes its bowl-related payouts in April, which is likely after the agreement is finalized but still part of the Pac-12’s current fiscal year, and it’s unclear if the money from these games will be considered shared revenue or future income.
A representative for Washington State, one of the two remaining members, said in an email that many in the Cougars athletic department believe it will be shared across all current Pac-12 schools. Representatives for the Pac-12 and Washington declined to comment. An Oregon athletics spokesman referred questions to the conference.
This Washington playoff run has come amid a much broader legal fight over Pac-12 revenue, which began shortly after the league’s future fell apart over the course of a few dramatic hours in August. The conference had for months been working to secure a long-term TV deal that would keep it intact, but on Aug. 4 it lost Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten, and then Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12. A few weeks later, Cal and Stanford agreed to join the ACC, leaving just Oregon State and Washington State in the Pac-12.
The departures triggered a legal fight over whether the exiting schools should have a say in conference decision-making, board votes and, of course, revenue sharing. The remaining two scored a big win last month at the Washington Supreme Court, and one week later, both sides announced the framework of a settlement. The exiting schools said at the time that the two sides agreed to equally distribute the “vast majority” of revenue earned in 2023-24—presumably encompassing the biggest revenue items, like conference media deals and the CFP’s non-bowl payouts. The two remaining schools instead framed it as the departing members agreeing to forfeit “a portion” of those distributions.
As part of their settlement, which has yet to be finalized, the departing schools all agreed to pay the Pac-12 $65 million total, according to multiple people familiar with the deal. That’s $6.5 million for each of the league’s 10 defectors, a list that includes Colorado, USC and UCLA, which announced their plans to leave the conference prior to the others. Apart from the exit fee, the conference agreed to evenly divvy up this year’s league revenue among the dozen members, said sources, who were granted anonymity because the details are private. Revenue earned this year but paid in the future, however, such as “units” from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, will remain with Oregon State and Washington State.
The CFP bowl money is relatively small in the grand scheme of the financials at play right now, both in the Pac-12 lawsuit and in the broader pursuit of greener conference pastures. Split 12 ways, the $18.55 million is only $1.54 million for Washington, which has an athletics budget of about $150 million. That ranked 18th among all public schools in 2021-22, according to Sportico’s college finance database.
However, that $1.54 million is nearly 25% of the $6.5 million that the school likely owes the Pac-12 under that settlement agreement. It’s also slightly more than what Washington said it spent on all football recruiting in 2021-22.
In its most recent tax return, which covered the 2022 fiscal year, the Pac-12 reported total postseason bowl revenue of $124.7 million. The Pac-12’s Rose Bowl distribution last year was $41.9 million, according to the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association’s most recent tax filings. The league did not place a team in the CFP semifinals that year.