It apparently wasn’t enough that the Southeastern Conference produced an Alabama-Georgia All-SEC finale in the College Football Playoff championship game last month.

Now comes the real smack in the face to the rest of major college athletics, this one delivered by the SEC waving its latest bank statement.

The conference said Thursday it will pay its 14 members an average of approximately $41 million each for the 2016-17 fiscal year. Since the fiscal year concluded last summer, the totals only figure to escalate when the SEC gets its CFP checks for the current fiscal year.

This is just conference distributions and does not include what schools rake in from their own substantial ticket and sponsorship revenues or donations.

To put Thursday’s announced payout in perspective, the Mountain West Conference, which the University of Hawaii calls home in football, distributed $40 million — total — for its most recent reporting year, 2015, according to its IRS 990 form.

UH receives about $2 million in conference distributions annually but is also allowed to retain its TV and pay-per-view rights fees from Spectrum since it does not share in MWC TV monies under its membership agreement.

But it isn’t just the MWC’s piggy bank that is dwarfed by the SEC’s fleet of armored cars. When their returns are in, the nine other FBS leagues figure to, again, be trailing, with everybody but the Big Ten paling by a wide margin.

Welcome to the widening disparity in major college athletics between the haves and the have-nots. What once was a fissure has become the Grand Canyon.

Recall, for instance that in 2003 UH beat Alabama in football here, 37-29. And that, in the 2006 season opener in Tuscaloosa, UH was in the game until the end, losing 25-17. Notable accomplishments to be sure for a non-Power Five school such as UH, even if the Crimson Tide were reeling from NCAA sanctions and Mike Shula’s coaching.

Back then, what the SEC was distributing among its members was one-fifth of what it hands out today.

But thanks to fatter TV rights deals and the advent of its own league-owned SEC Network, the conference has nearly doubled its take in the past five years, according to USA Today, and now brings in more money than if each of its schools had an oil well on campus.

While that allows Alabama to pay its coach, Nick Saban, $11.1 million a year and LSU to make former UH defensive coordinator Dave Aranda the highest-paid assistant at $1.8 million, the money tree does more than permit SEC schools to elevate their football teams.

The moolah also funds impressive facilities, full-on, year-round training tables and substantial cost-of-attendance payments. It helps to underwrite sports offerings across the board, including women’s volleyball and baseball, which can dominate in securing NCAA postseason berths.

“This distribution from the SEC is instrumental to our universities’ athletics programs’ ability to provide the highest possible level of support for the thousands of student-athletes who participate annually in nearly two dozen conference sports,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. “This commitment to excellence encompasses superior support in coaching, equipment, training, academic counseling, medical care and life-skills development for our student-athletes.”

All of which makes for a humbling — and daunting — experience for the vast majority of major colleges, like one near you, just trying to be competitive while attempting to come close to balancing their checkbooks.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.