SALT LAKE CITY — Financially, the University of Utah has been better off than some Pac-12 schools. For that matter, so has previously-independent Brigham Young University.
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But a review of revenue figures shows how Pac-12 members have been — on average — tens of millions of dollars behind their counterparts in the other so-called Power 5 conferences.
Figures acquired by the sports and business website Sportico says the Utes had revenues of $102 million in fiscal year 2022. That put Utah in the top third of the Pac-12 and gave the Utes athletic department a profit of $3.8 million.
Overall, the public schools in the Pac-12 had average revenues of $99 million in fiscal 2022. That’s the lowest among the Power 5 conferences.
The Big 12, the conference BYU is entering this season and that Utah will join next year, averaged revenues of $129 million for its public schools, Sportico found.
For privately-owned BYU, the best financial data is what it reported to the U.S. Department of Education for calendar year 2021. Its $95 million in revenue would have placed it near the bottom of the Big 12, though about the median for the Pac-12.
The gap between the Pac-12 and their peers is expected to grow in 2024, when the other big conferences begin new deals for television rights that will pay them even more.
At a news conference Monday in Tucson, University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins confirmed that last week Pac-12 universities were pitched a streaming-only deal from Apple. It would have paid each school at least $23 million a year with more money possible if subscriptions met a certain threshold.
No games would have been broadcast on conventional television.
When it enters the Big 12 next year, Utah will receive $31 million a year from broadcasting rights. BYU is entering the conference on a more gradual basis and won’t receive that amount until 2025.
“At the end of the day,” University of Utah President Taylor Randall said at a news conference Monday in Salt Lake City, “each university was kind of plugging in the numbers and making their own decision.”