For those of you familiar with Forbes magazine, they have been publishing annual valuations of all the professional sports teams for years, but for the last two, they've put together the value of the top college football teams as if they were a capitalized business. Unlike professional franchises which can be bought and sold in the open market, our teams belong solely to the university and their capitalization must be measured in a different sort of way. For Forbes, they looked at the *dividend* that is paid out to the *shareholders* in three different fashions: 1--Profits made for the university to plow back into football and into academic programs; 2--Revenue generated for the teams' respective conference; 3--Revenue generated for the surrounding community.
1) Texas, $119M value, $59M profit, Austin metro population, 1.51M
2) Notre Dame, $108M value, $38M profit, South Bend pop. 317k
3) Penn State, $99M value, $50M profit, State College pop. 145k
4) Nebraska, $93M value, $49M profit, Lincoln pop. 295k
5) Alabama, $92M value, $38M profit, Tuscaloosa pop. 207k
6) Florida, $88M value, $41M profit, Gainesville pop. 259k
7) LSU, $86M value, $39M profit, Baton Rouge pop. 774k
8) Ohio State, $85M value, $36M profit, Columbus pop. 1.77M
9) Georgia, $84M value, $45M profit, Athens pop. 189k
10) Oklahoma, $83M value, $40M profit, Cleveland county pop. 240k
11) Michigan, $81M value, $34M profit, Ann Arbor pop. 347k
12) South Carolina, $80M value, $37M profit, Columbia pop. 728k
13) Tennessee, $78M value, $29M profit, Knoxville pop. 691k
14) Auburn, $70M value, $30M profit, Auburn pop. 133k
15) USC, $68M value, $33M profit, LA pop. 9.68M
16) Michigan State, $57M value, $28M profit, Lansing pop. 454k
17) Arkansas, $56M value, $20M profit, Fayetteville pop. 444k
18) Texas A&M, $52M, $22M profit, College Station pop. 207k
19) Wisconsin, $48M value, $17M profit, Madison pop. 562k
20) Oklahoma State, $47 value, $18M profit, Stillwater pop. 78k
Probably the biggest surprise in the group: South Carolina, who despite a long storied tradition of winning, seems to have some of the most loyal fans in the country. They've certainly seen big dividends reinvested during Spurrier's tenure.
Every team except Notre Dame and USC is from the SEC, Big 12 or Big Ten conferences. Twelve of the teams in the group would be considered 'southern' teams. The SEC itself has eight of it's twelve members on the list.
The top three smallest markets: 1) Stillwater, OK 2) Auburn, AL 3) State College, PA
h/t: AU04Natlchamps