Ohio State may not repeat as national champions this season, but the Urban Meyer coached team still is still number one in a different category. The Wall Street Journal reported for a second straight year Ohio State’s football team leads the country with a value of $946.6 million, according to an annual study by Ryan Brewer, as assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus.
Here’s how Brewer came up with his numbers per WSJ.
“Brewer analyzed each program’s revenues and expenses and made cash-flow adjustments, risk assessments and growth projections to calculate what a college team would be worth on the open market, if it could be bought and sold like a professional franchise.”
While $946 million sounds like a lot of money, it’s down a bit from the $1.1 billion that the Buckeye program’s estimated value was last year. It’s part of an overall decline in college football’s worth (in spite of revenue increasing) thanks to a number of factors:
Overall, the value of Football Bowl Subdivision teams has dropped 1.8% on average from last year despite cash flows increasing 18% and revenues growing 9.6% year over year. The reasons for the drop were concerns about concussions and football’s safety, declining youth football participation, lack of resolution over pay-for-play concerns, and the scheduling of the College Football Playoff, which saw ratings for the semifinals fall by nearly 40% when played on New Year’s Eve this year, as opposed to New Year’s Day. Ohio State’s value dipped from more than $1.1 billion last year while the Buckeyes are also the lone team now worth more than $900 million, down from four such teams a year ago.
Alabama and Clemson, who will face off today for the CFP Championship don’t quite have the projected value of Ohio State, as Alabama checks in at 5th place at $694 million, while Clemson is way back at 30th at $237 million. Out of 116 teams listed, Louisiana Monroe is last with a $5.65 million value.
Here’s the top-ten list.
As far as the Top 25 breakdown, it stands as follows:
SEC: 9
Big Ten: 6
Big XII: 4
Pac 12: 3
Acc: 2
Independents: 1 (Notre Dame)
Interestingly, it might surprise you that Washington (#15) is the top ranked Pac 12 school and the top ACC school doesn’t come in until #21 (Florida State). The top non-Power 5 schools (aside from Notre Dame) are BYU at #56 and Central Florida at #58. The lowest ranked Power 5 school is Wake Forest at #72, but its football program is still worth over $44 million
It’s kind of baffling that organizations worth millions of dollars can be projected to be so valuable, yet they still don’t pay athletes who earn them the lion-share of their profits.
