This should come as no surprise -- even in light of Nick Saban staying in Tuscaloosa -- but Texas is college football’s most valuable program, according to Forbes. Texas is worth $139 million, a staggering figure $22 million more than the second-most valuable program (Notre Dame, $117 million).
Rounding out Forbes’ top 10: Alabama ($110 million), LSU ($105 million), Michigan ($104 million), Florida ($94 million), Oklahoma ($94 million), Georgia ($91 million), Ohio State ($83 million) and Nebraska ($80 million).
Auburn checks in at No. 11 with a value of $77 million, while BCS Championship foe Florida State didn’t make Forbes’ top 20. In fact, no ACC team cracked the top 20, though the article notes FSU and Clemson both have values north of $50 million that’ll be boosted next year by BCS berths.
Here’s Forbes’ methodology:To determine college football’s most valuable teams, we consider each team’s value to its athletic department, its university’s academic endeavors, its conference and its school’s local economy. Athletic value consists of football profit that is directed toward supporting non-revenue sports, like softball or gymnastics, while a team’s value to academics consists of money that supports football scholarships or other non-athletic programming, like faculty support, non-athletic scholarships or a library fund. Conference value consists of revenue generated for other conference teams by participating in a bowl game, and a team’s value to its local community consists of the direct spending injected by fans visiting the area on days of the team’s home games.
Our financial data is for the 2012-13 season, and we utilize team revenues and expenses as reported to the Department of Education. We also standardize those financial figures to account for differences in each school’s accounting practices.Texas is the best job in the country, and these figures only further that notion. Being the best job doesn’t necessarily equate with being the best program -- Texas hasn’t been to a BCS bowl since January of 2010 -- so winning isn’t a guarantee despite the heaps of cash the Longhorns can pull in.