Big Chance For Big Ten Schools To Cash In On March Madness

Out of the 16 teams left in the men's NCAA basketball tournament, four come from the Big Ten (Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State).

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NCAA Basketball Trophy

And there's even better news in that only two of those teams, Ohio State and Wisconsin, would have to play each other if they made it into the Elite Eight.

Thanks to a huge television deal with CBS and Turner that averages $770 million a year for the next 12 years, schools and conferences are receiving larger distributions.

This year, each game a school plays in is worth $242,203. That's up from $222,206 and $239,664 over the previous two seasons.

A conference gets paid that amount of money over each of the next six years, meaning that one game is worth $1,453,218 to the conference. (The NCAA reasons it’s better to do it this way to lessen the pressure on the schools to win.)

Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State play their third game tonight, while Indiana plays tomorrow night. So far, the Big Ten schools have earned $17,438,616. Purdue played in two games before losing to Kansas and Michigan was upset by #13 seed Ohio in the first round, bringing the grand total of playing in 20 games to $29,064,360 that will paid out over six years.

The Big Ten divides its shares equally, so Northwestern and Penn State, which didn't make the tournament, will get as much money as those that went far.

Actually 11 schools in the Big Ten will get an equal share. Nebraska won't earn full shares on distributions until 2017.

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