The Big 12 put one team in the Final Four, two in the Elite Eight and four in the Sweet 16. By most measures, that multi-round representation constitutes a stellar finish to the season.
But the bar was set extraordinarily high back on Oct. 14, when the Big 12 became the first conference in history to place five teams in the top 10 of the Associated Press preseason poll.
A news release from conference HQ declared “Big 12 Makes History” and noted the AP has been publishing a preseason poll since 1961-62.
With that lofty benchmark, was the collective on-court performance that followed an unqualified success? How should we grade the Big 12 season for posterity?
To a certain extent, the conference deserves an Incomplete as we await Houston’s fate in the Final Four. But in the interest of premature judgment — what fun is collecting all the facts? — the Hotline settled on an overall grade of A- for the conference.
Clearly, the situation could have been much worse given the No. 1 team in the AP preseason poll morphed into perhaps the most disappointing in the country. Kansas lost 13 games overall and nine in conference play and was eliminated in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by a lower seed (Arkansas).
Baylor also underperformed based on its preseason ranking (No. 8), while Arizona stumbled early and recovered late.
The regression in Lawrence was largely offset by Texas Tech, which soared from unranked in October to the top 10 in February and the Elite Eight in March. Brigham Young also provided an upside surprise with a stellar run through February.
All in all, the regular season was a tad shy of expectations.
If not for Houston, which earned a No. 1 seed and could become the third Big 12 school to win the NCAA title this decade (following Baylor and Kansas), the regular season would have approached flop territory.
But by another measure, this was a breakthrough year for the Big 12.
The conference sent seven teams to the NCAAs, one fewer than last season, but generated 20 units (i.e., games played) that are worth $350,000 each. (Those units are paid out annually over six years, bringing the value of a single unit to approximately $2 million over the course of the payout period.)
The Big 12’s success rate of 2.9 units per tournament participant is its highest of the decade and the best of any power conference this season.
The SEC set records with 14 tournament bids and 35 units earned, but that equates to 2.5 units per participant.
The Big Ten had eight teams in the field and collected 21 units, a production rate of 2.6.
But there’s one more layer to the calculation. NCAA Tournament revenue is split among all Big 12 members. And when viewed through that lens, the 2025 performance lags the pre-expansion years.
Units earned per member school:
2021: 1.6 (16 units/10 schools)2022: 1.7 (17 units/10 schools)2023: 1.6 (16 units/10 schools)2024: 1.07 (15 units/14 schools)2025: 1.25 (20 units/16 schools)
To be clear: This is merely a surface-level assessment. Because of the Big 12’s membership changes and related revenue-sharing stipulations, the dollars-per-campus breakdown is far more intricate.
But it’s a good reminder that conference expansion — whether it’s the Big 12 or Big Ten or SEC — results in mere incremental revenue growth from March Madness.
The SEC earned a record $70 million from its success this month, for example. But paid out over six years and split among 16 members, that works out to $729,000 per campus per year.
Sure, the schools will gladly accept their checks. But the cash collected doesn’t materially change their budgets.
For all the (understandable) emphasis placed on the NCAAs, the revenue generated is just a fraction of what the schools receive from conference media rights agreements and the College Football Playoff.
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