Oklahoma was not a full-fledged member of the SEC during the 2024 fiscal year, but that didn’t stop the program — and Texas — from receiving conference distributions from their new league.
The SEC on Thursday announced its revenue distribution for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which ran from Sept. 1, 2023, to Aug. 31, 2024, with the conference dishing out $808.4 million to its 16 member universities. That included $27.5 million to both Oklahoma and Texas, which joined the. SEC officially on July 1, 2024.
“The SEC’s annual distribution of revenue helps member universities maintain strong athletics programs while supporting the academic and athletic ambitions of thousands of student-athletes across the conference,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a release. “As the entire college athletics enterprise works through significant change, SEC universities are uniquely positioned to provide new financial benefits for student-athletes while continuing to deliver transformative, life-changing college experiences. Beyond providing an exceptional, debt-free education, this experience includes world-class support in coaching, training, academic counseling, medical care, mental health support, nutrition, life-skills development and post-eligibility healthcare coverage for SEC student-athletes.”
The SEC’s $808.4 million in distributions — which is up from $741 million the year prior — includes $790.7 million distributed directly from the conference office, with another $17.7 million earned by SEC schools during the 2023-24 bowl season. The SEC’s preexisting 14 member schools earned, on average, $52.5 million in revenue distribution.
The distributions to Oklahoma and Texas were a result of “transition payments derived from a combination of television agreements and refundable application fees remitted to the conference in a prior fiscal year.” The refunded amounts come from the application fees OU and Texas provided the SEC in August 2021. According to USA Today, the application fee for each school was $15 million, with an additional $12.5 million in transition payments provided to the schools and funded by ESPN.
It’s unclear if the $27.5 million distributed to Oklahoma by the SEC was factored into OU’s NCAA financial report for the 2024 fiscal year, which at Oklahoma runs from July 1 through June 30—slightly different than the SEC’s fiscal calendar of Sept. 1 through Aug. 31. Oklahoma previously reported a record $208 million in revenue for its athletics department during the 2024 fiscal year, which represented the program’s final year in the Big 12.
In that NCAA financial report, which Sooners Illustrated obtained last Friday in response to a public records request, Oklahoma reported $29.1 million in revenue from media rights and $6.3 million in conference distributions (including those from bowl games). The OU athletics department operated at a $2.6 million profit for the 2024 fiscal year, according to the filing.