It’s a new day and age in college football, where money has taken over. Ohio State is celebrating their first national championship in a decade, in large part due to their infamous $20 million roster. NIL and the transfer portal have evened the playing field for every program willing to put their money where their mouth is. Something most programs shouldn’t have a problem doing, given how lucrative the business of college football can be if you win.
Andrew Beaton of The Wall Street Journal recently took a dive into the most valuable college football programs across the nation. Unsurprisingly, the Ohio State Buckeyes ranked first after winning the first ever 12-team college football playoff, with an estimated worth just shy of $2 billion! However, the Georgia Bulldogs weren’t too far behind, ranking 4th with an estimated worth of $1.348 billion.
“The Buckeyes would be worth $1.96 billion if the team could be sold on the open market, according to an analysis by Ryan Brewer, an associate professor of finance at Indiana University Columbus,” Beaton writes. “That puts Ohio State just ahead of Texas ($1.9 billion) and rival Michigan ($1.66 billion), with six other programs—Georgia, Notre Dame, LSU, Penn State, Tennessee and Texas A&M—topping the billion dollar mark.”
“Brewer conducts his study by analyzing a program’s finances and asking: What would it be worth if it could be bought and sold like a professional franchise?
Brewer looks at top-line revenues, growth and drivers of cash flow and makes projections about the sustainability of the operation, just as he would with any other business. It isn’t a mere one-year snapshot, either—he combed through years of data for 131 major college football programs, from the heavyweights all the way down to Louisiana-Monroe. Then, after breaking down everything from television viewership to trends in enrollment, his spreadsheet finally spits out an answer.”
After crunching the numbers, Brewer came up with the Georgia Bulldogs football program earning nearly $200 million in revenue with an adjusted cash flow of $82 million, which is where the nearly $1.4 billion evaluation came from.
Of course, the Georgia Bulldogs, or any collegiate team, is not an entity that can be sold. However, it’s the Wild West right now, and I’m not sure we are even close to the tipping point. As more incredibly wealthy boosters get more heavily involved, who knows how the landscape will continue to change. Pandora’s box has been opened — for better or for worse — and everybody would love a piece of the money-making machine that is college football.
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Photo: Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire
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