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The chart below is a look at revenues generated by college athletic conferences during 2012 based on data collected by USA Today.
The data shows that the SEC generates the most money in college athletics while the average Big Ten school generates slightly more than the SEC. It is clear why many schools have jockeyed for spots in the Big Ten and SEC in recent years.
Since data was only available for public universities, we assumed that athletics revenues for private universities were the same as the average of the public schools within that conference. Large revenue streams (e.g. television revenue) are typically distributed equally among all schools. So the private schools are likely to be within the neighborhood of the conference average.
Data via USAToday.com