If Texas were to happen to lose the national title game to Alabama next month, at least they can take comfort in the fact that they can wipe away any tears shed with wads of $100 bills.
According to a report at Forbes.com, Texas is the most valuable college football team in the country, coming in at what Forbes estimates as a value of $119 million. The Longhorns also reportedly cleared $59 million this past year.
As noted by the report, 18 of the 20 most valuable programs came from the SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten. That can be attributed in large part to the television deals signed by the respective conferences.
The magazine laid out its criteria for determining a football’s worth, breaking it down to into four categories.
But it’s what the Longhorns were able to do with that money that makes them college football’s most valuable team. Unlike NFL teams, which can be bought and sold on the open market, college teams have value in terms of what kind of dividends they pay to their stakeholders. “Dividend” money is what’s left for the team’s university (for academic purposes, including scholarship payments for football players) and athletic department (to support non-revenue sports) after the cost of running the football operation in question. It also includes what’s generated for its conference (the distribution of bowl game revenue) and the community around the university (estimated incremental spending by visitors to the county that’s attributable to the program). In our scoring system, the first two factors were given the most weight, while county revenue was given the least.
Notre Dame, the most valuable program the past two years, was a distant second with a value of $108 million.
Rounding out the Top Five were Penn State ($99 million), Nebraska ($93 million) and Alabama ($92 million).
It should be noted that the Tide’s value according to Forbes has increased 31% since the hiring of Nick Saban in 2007.
The Tide might very well be past the Longhorns if revenues up to the current moment were figured. Alabama merchandise was selling extremely well before the SEC Championship game; ever since then, it has been unbelievable. I bought a pair of running shoes at a JCPenney athletic wear store this past weekend; the clerk told me that they had done $6k of business the previous day, and $5500 of it was ‘Bama stuff. The economy may be down and we may be above 10% unemployment in this state, but you can’t tell it from everyone lined up to buy their T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, Nick Saban straw golf hats…and yes, even houndstooth hats.
dcroz dude come on its like what the hell happened to common sense in this country? are the tide having a good year, yes. do the tide have the same national following as the longhorns do, hell no. end of arguement thats like saying that a team is gonna pass the yankees in revenue because they’re having a good year
Yeah, Alabama made up a $26 million delta in the last two or three weeks, while Texas fans didn’t buy a single thing. Wake up.
If you take a look at population and attendance figures, this should come as little surprise. Texas is the second most populated state in the country and has more “t-shirt” fans than you can imagine. (I live in TX and 90 percent of those wearing Longhorn gear couldn’t find Austin with a Texas roadmap) Add to that the fact that the U of T has one of the top two or three enrollments in the country, which provides a huge alumni base. While success is a major component of the figures used to determine value, don’t ever discount state populations and enrollment figures. The only reason Notre Dame is even in the equation is because half the Catholics in the country think they went to ND.
Someone told us last night that Bama SEC Chamionship hats that were selling for less than $20 bucks are going on e-bay for $90. Sure wish we’d bought a bunch of those hats. But I don’t think the average fan cares which program is worth more. We only care who wins.
ROLL TIDE!!
John, I really just dropped by to wish you a Merry Christmas!! You ol’ Browns fan, you!
[...] has pegged the value of the Longhorns at $129 million, up roughly eight percent from its value in the 2009 rankings. UT is well ahead of No. 2 Notre Dame, with the Irish coming in at $112 [...]