How Much Money Did Saint Peter's Earn During March Madness?

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Hey Friends,

Saint Peter’s has seen its March Madness dreams come to an end, losing yesterday to the North Carolina Tar Heels (UNC) by a score of 69-49.

Still, their NCAA tournament run was monumental. The small, 2,600-person school beat #2 seed Kentucky in the first round, #7 seed Murray State in the second round, and #3 seed Purdue in the third round.

They became the first team seeded No. 13 or lower to make the Elite Eight in tournament history, and the three schools that they beat to get there spend over $200 million more than Saint Peter’s on athletics each year.

I mean, just look at the difference in home arenas at Saint Peter’s & Kentucky.

But that’s just one example of the financial disparity that Saint Peter’s faced.

Kevin Sweeny at Sports Illustrated did a deep-dive on the school last week. I highly recommend you read the full article, but here are the highlights:

• Kentucky head coach John Calipari’s annual salary ($8.5 million) is more than five times Saint Peter’s annual men’s basketball expenditures (~$1.6 million).

• Division I teams are allowed three assistant coaches on the road recruiting. But until recently, Saint Peter’s only had the budget for two paid assistants. So their third assistant was an unpaid volunteer.

• The basketball coaching offices were located under the “tennis bubble,” an air-supported roof that enclosed the tennis courts on top of the rec center. So, as a result, when snow would melt, water would leak down and cause the offices to flood — here’s a picture.

• The visiting locker room was a mess before the school renovated its arena ahead of the 2021-22 season. The temperature fluctuated, swimmers would enter during games to take showers, and the hot water even stopped working when Loyola Chicago came to town back in the 2012-13 season.

Now, I’m sure those stories are just the tip of the iceberg. But you get the point; the odds that Saint Peter’s would make it to the Elite 8 were essentially zero.

So the real question is — how much did Saint Peter’s benefit from this, financially?

Well, the answer to that is complicated. The NCAA is expected to bring in about $1 billion in revenue from this year’s tournament. The vast majority of that comes through media rights, and about 40% of it is then filtered back out to conferences competing in the tournament via “units.”

The TLDR explanation is that a “unit” is awarded for each game played, minus the championship. So if a team makes it to the tournament, they get a unit. If they win and make it to the round of 32, they get another unit. If they win again and make it to the sweet 16, they get another unit. And since the value of a unit typically increases by about 3% annually, this year’s units should carry an annual value of about $350,000.

But two caveats make it interesting:

1. Units are paid out in annual distributions over a rolling six-year period.

2. Units are awarded to conferences, not individual teams.

So let’s take Saint Peter’s, for example. They qualified for the tournament and advanced to the Elite 8 by winning three games. That means they earned four units, and with each unit being worth about $350k, they earned roughly $1.4 million. And since units are paid out in annual distributions over a rolling six-year period, Saint Peter’s really earned about $8.4 million ($1.4 million x 6 years = $8.4 million total).

But again, the money is awarded to conferences, not individual teams. So Saint Peter’s won’t see all $8.4 million. Instead, the money will be paid to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) over the next six years. The NCAA encourages conferences to share this money equally among member schools, but it isn’t required.

This chart is a little outdated, but it’s a good visual representation of how the conference payments work.

Maybe Saint Peter’s ends up getting a slightly larger share of the money than everyone else in their conference. I mean, they did all the work. But still, the point is that success during the tournament doesn’t automatically equate to a financial windfall.

I hope everyone has a great day. We’ll talk tomorrow.

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Huddle Up is a daily letter that breaks down the business and money behind sports.

Join more than 54,000 professional athletes, business executives, and casual sports fans that receive it directly in their inbox each morning — it’s free.