Even Arizona fans with a deep-seated dislike of UCLA have reason to cheer over the Bruins' NCAA Tournament run.
By making it all the way from the First Four to the Final Four, UCLA is responsible for $12 million of the Pac-12's conference-record $38.4 million haul from its collective NCAA Tournament success this season. That means Arizona and all of the league's 12 schools will earn $3.2 million each.
The Bruins earned the maximum of six "units" for each game they will have appeared in -- payouts are capped after national semifinals -- while the Pac-12 also had two teams earn four units (Oregon State and USC) by appearing in the Elite Eight. Oregon earned three units by reaching the Sweet 16 and Colorado two for making the second round.
Each unit is worth $337,141 each year for a total of six years, or just over $2 million each. The Pac-12's total of 19 units means the conference will distribute $6.41 million each year equally to its 12 members ($533,806 per team per year) or a total of $3.2 million per team over the next six years.
The 19 collective units shatters the conference's previous record of 17, set in 2001, when Arizona, UCLA, USC and Stanford all reached the Sweet 16 and Arizona made it to the championship game. But back then, a unit was only worth about $100,000, so the Pac-10's 17 units were worth about only $10 million total (though distributed to only 10 teams instead of 12).
As it turned out, the $3.2 million Arizona will earn this season is probably more than the Wildcats would have pulled in had they opted to play in the 2021 tournament unless they also made a deep NCAA Tournament run. (That is, if you consider that there's a good chanceΒ Arizona, UCLA and Oregon State would not all have made the NCAA Tournament field together had the Wildcats not banned themselves).
