This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Bowl Championship Series era resulted in a boatload of revenue for the NCAA, but it also widened the gap between the haves and have-nots.
That's the upshot of a study published recently in the Contemporary Issues in Education Research by Xavier University of Louisiana professor Cary Caro.
Division I college football teams generated $24 billion in revenue from 2002 to 2012, he found, and being a member of a Bowl Championship Series automatic qualifying conference gave schools an $18.8 million per school advantage over non-AQ teams.
Utah is cited in the report, along with TCU, for their moves from a non-AQ conference and subsequent major gains in AQ conferences.
Utah averaged $11.8 million a year as a member of the Mountain West Conference, the report says, and has since averaged $24.2 million.
The U.'s single-season revenue of $16.4 million in 2008, when they beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, was the second-most for non-AQ institutions, behind TCU.
— Matthew Piper
Twitter: @matthew_piper