Assessing ACC's latest tax filings and record 2013-14 revenue

Assessing ACC's latest tax filings and record 2013-14 revenue

"The ACC last week released its 2012-13 tax return and, in a welcome change of policy, also revealed its revenue for fiscal 2013-14. But subsequent media accounts and comparisons to other conferences created some confusion.
So let’s hit some key points and attempt to enlighten, first from 2012-13, the league’s last year with 12 schools.
# The conference’s 2012-13 tax return, Form 990, showed total revenue of $232.45 million, a modest 3.9-percent bump from the previous year. Per-school payouts ranged from Florida State’s $19.5 million to Wake Forest’s $16.6 million.
While the ACC is essentially a revenue-sharing league, variances are due mostly to football bowl money allotments based on the games in which schools compete.
# Virginia Tech and Virginia received $18.3 million and $16.8 million, respectively.
# ACC television revenue increased 12.3 percent from the year prior, to $146.6 million. That’s nearly double from the $75.3 million of 2007-08.
# The ACC’s distributions to members do not include individual schools’ multi-media and licensing arrangements with firms such as IMG and Learfield Sports. Nor do the distributions listed on the tax return include money from a championship pool of approximately $8 million that the conference awards to schools based on their teams' success. 
# By comparison, the SEC’s 2012-13 Form 990 shows $314.50 million in revenue, with per-school distributions of approximately $21 million. The Big Ten’s 2012-13 tax return, according to the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal & Courier, showed $318 million in revenue and $298 million in payouts, with most schools pocketing about $25.9 million.
How Big Ten finances perform with the impending additions of Maryland and Rutgers will be intriguing.    
# Meanwhile, the Pacific 12 reported record revenue of $334 million, according to the San Jose Mercury News’ Jon Wilner. But while other conferences return at least 90 percent of revenue to member schools, the Pac-12 distributed only 68 percent, putting per-school shares at about $19.8 million.
# Commissioner John Swofford, who shepherded the ACC through the additions of Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame, plus the defection of Maryland to the Big Ten and the choice of Louisville as a replacement, received a 32.1-percent raise, to $2.14 million.
Now for the confusing areas.
While the filing and public disclosure of federal returns for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) enterprises such as college conferences lag a year behind the calendar, leagues such as the SEC and Big 12 have traditionally released current revenue figures during their annual spring meetings, a practice the ACC has resisted.
But last week the ACC told the Daily Press and ESPN.com that its revenue for 2013-14, the conference’s first with 14 football members and 15 (Notre Dame) for other sports, was a league-record $291.7 million, a big-time bump of 24 percent from just a year ago reflecting an enhanced contract with ESPN . That led some media to simply divide the $291.7 million by 14 and presume average per-school distributions of $20.8 million.
Such reports are misleading. Based on previous tax filings, the ACC returns about 90 percent of revenue to schools -- the remainder is for league expenses -- a rate that would translate to average per-school distributions of approximately $18.8 million for 2013-14. Again, that amount does not include the championship pool money, which is calculated and awarded separately.
Each school’s exact cut for 2013-14 won’t be known for a year, when tax returns are filed. Notre Dame, like the ACC's other schools, will receive one-fifteenth of basketball television money -- the Fighting Irish have their own football arrangement with NBC and do not share in conference football TV dollars.
Estimating that amount is tricky, but Swofford has said that basketball produces about 20 percent of the league's television money. Translation: Notre Dame's share figures to be around 2.5 million.
Now how does all this compare with other conferences?
The SEC announced that in 2013-14 it will distribute approximately $20.9 million to each of its 14 schools. The Big 12 said it will share with its 10 members about $212 million of the league’s record revenue of $221 million – newcomers West Virginia and Texas Christian will not receive a full share.
So ACC distributions of about $20 million -- this includes the championship pool -- are a tick behind its power conference rivals, though in a time of $90 million-plus annual athletic-department budgets at major schools, the difference is not extreme. But this does highlight the ACC’s urgency to take advantage of its unsurpassed demographics and partner with ESPN for a lucrative cable channel dedicated to the league’s sports.
Finally, some charts for your perusal. The headings include total revenue, TV dollars, bowls, NCAA basketball tournament and average, per-school share. Amounts are in millions and directly from tax returns, so no championship pool dollars.
ACC REVENUES LAST SIX YEARS
                                Total      TV           Bowl      NCAA    Avg. share
2007-2008            $162.8   $75.3     $29.2     $15.1     $11.8
2008-2009            $172.7   $76.9     $30.7     $15.9     $13.6
2009-2010            $158.2   $77.6     $31.6     $18.2     $11.7
2010-2011            $167.2   $79.3     $36.7     $18.2     $12.3
2011-2012            $223.6   $130.5   $43.8     $17.7     $16.9
2012-2013            $232.4   $146.6   $36.7     $18.2     $17.6

VIRGINIA TECH, VIRGINIA SHARES OF ACC REVENUE     
                                Tech      UVa
2007-2008            $12.8     $12.1
2008-2009            $15.4     $12.5
2009-2010            $11.9     $11.0
2010-2011            $14.1     $11.2
2011-2012            $18.5     $17.4
2012-2013            $18.3     $16.8

SCHOOL SHARES FOR 2012-13
Florida State: $19.5 million
Clemson: $18.5M
Virginia Tech: $18.3M
Duke: $18.2M
N.C. State: $18.1M
Georgia Tech: $17.7M
North Carolina: $16.9M
Maryland: $16.8M
Virginia: $16.8M
Miami: $16.7M
Boston College: $16.7M
Wake Forest: $16.6M"