When all the numbers are crunched and the shared revenue is passed out, Kansas University could rake in close to $4 million this football bowl season, most of it based on playing in the prestigious Orange Bowl on Jan. 3.

That figure merely is an educated estimate at this point, and KU’s travel expenses to Miami will have to come out of that amount. But it’s a number that easily trumps what KU received in 2005 – about $2.1 million before travel expenses – after playing in the lower-tier Fort Worth Bowl.

The $4 million estimate figures in the approximately $1.75 million that each of the Big 12 schools will receive this spring as part of the conference’s revenue-sharing plan for bowl payouts.

The rest will come from a Member Participation Subsidy, an amount that increases based on the prestige of the bowl, the distance required to travel to the site and the amount of tickets the school is able to sell for its game.

In the past, teams going to BCS bowls generally get around $2.3 million in M.P.S. money.

The ticket sales are the wild card. The Big 12 picks up the tab for any excess tickets that are not sold (in KU’s case, there is an allotment of 17,500 for the Orange Bowl). But if more than half of the allotment is scooped up – Kansas is well past that at this point – then the school is permitted to retain half of the revenue from those sales.

“If you sell more and it’s a larger (price), you’re going to get more,” Big 12 chief financial officer Steve Pace said.

In addition to the ticket bonus, Kansas is allotted $1.48 million for expenses and $199 per mile traveled. Add to it the $1.75 million for revenue sharing, and the estimation of $4 million comes up.

Missouri, meanwhile, expects to get roughly $3 million for going to the Cotton Bowl. Kansas State will get the $1.75 million estimate as part of the revenue sharing, but no M.P.S. since it is not going to a bowl game.

Revenue sharing can be a controversial subject, but athletic director Lew Perkins is fine with the conference collecting everyone’s payouts and sharing the wealth.

“Most of the money goes to the conference, which we believe it should,” Perkins said. “We believe in revenue sharing.”

In all, Pace guesses that the Big 12 will receive $35 million in bowl payouts from the eight games league schools are heading to. A majority of that – roughly $21.5 million – comes from the two BCS bowl bids earned by Oklahoma and Kansas. Oklahoma won the Big 12 and will play in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2.

The Sooners likely will get around $4 million as well, but the figure will differ slightly from what Kansas will get based on travel distance and ticket-sale bonuses.

At least part of the extra money heading KU’s way already is earmarked – football coach Mark Mangino’s contract states he will receive a $100,000 bonus for coaching Kansas to a BCS bowl.