By Andrew Beaton
Jan. 22, 2025
Ohio State just won the right to call itself college football’s national champions by stomping Notre Down. But even before they took down the Fighting Irish, the Buckeyes had already earned an even more lucrative title.
Ohio State is the most valuable program in college football.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day leads the Buckeyes on to the field prior to the national championship game against Notre Dame. Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images
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. 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.
This isn’t the first time Brewer has tackled this question, but these days, assigning a value to college programs is more complicated than ever. This is the first time he has compiled his data since college sports entered a new financial paradigm. Now, in addition to players getting paid by sponsors and boosters, schools are set to pay players directly.
From next season, colleges will be allowed to pay their athletes about $20 million a year—and Brewer expects athletic departments to tighten their belts in other areas. Coaching staff salaries that ballooned when the talent on the field was free, for instance, are already starting to correct themselves, Brewer says.
Even though the Buckeyes aren’t actually for sale, college sports is entering an era when such ideas aren’t entirely removed from reality. Private equity is already circling athletic departments. Brewer thinks that throwing open the door to investment funds could be particularly beneficial for smaller schools, which could use capital infusions to help them pay players.
Brewer’s analysis also accounts for factors that might not appear on any balance sheet. Alabama, for instance, used to get a bump simply because of the value one person brought to the program. But Nick Saban is no longer the coach of the Crimson Tide, and the team missed the expanded playoff without him.
Those types of X-factors are also why Brewer says that in the alternate universe where the top college football teams were on the market, he wouldn’t be surprised if the final price were closer to $4 billion. He calculates what the financials say a team should cost. But sports teams are rare assets where the price tag can blow well past the intrinsic value. The Washington Commanders recently set an NFL record by going for $6 billion.
Brewer envisions a scenario where college football teams become the subject of bidding wars between the people already pouring cash into the sport: ultrawealthy alumni.
“There’s something extra special about some of these programs,” Brewer says.
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