Ohio State leads the list in major college football. Kentucky is #1 in major college basketball.
What if pro leagues (the NBA and NFL, respectively) purchased major college teams and converted them to minor league franchises? They’d become equivalent to AAA farm clubs in Major League Baseball.
It’s a long shot, I know, but at least folks are talking about it, including me. But any possibility of it happening would require the pros to offer the universities a fair market price for their teams.
That’s where Professor Ryan Brewer of Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus comes into the picture. Professor Brewer crunches numbers and issues annual valuation estimates for major college football and basketball teams. Andrew Beaton of The Wall Street Journal follows the numbers, too.
Not surprisingly, Brewer’s lists represent a who’s who of college sports.
Other football notables include Penn State (22nd ranked at $550 million), Pitt (58th ranked at $115 million), and Temple (72nd ranked at $41 million). At the other end of the spectrum is Louisana, Monroe (last on the list of 115 teams) with an estimated market value of $6.8 million.
What about the value of college basketball teams? Again, it’s a list of who’s who. Data released just this week show that Kentucky leads the list with an estimated market value of $246 million. Other schools in the valuation top ten are (in order) Indiana, Louisville, Kansas, Duke, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Ohio State, Arizona, and Maryland.
What about national champ Villanova? Surprise! The Wildcats are ranked #55 nationally at $43 million.
What can we make of these data? First, major college sports are big business–corporation-size in dimension. Second, college football is more valuable than college basketball. You’d have to go down to #34 on the football valuation list (that’s Texas Tech) to find a football team that’s equivalent in estimated value to college basketball’s #1 Kentucky. Finally, there’s no question that the NBA and NFL would have to make major financial investments to convert major college teams to professional farm system status.
Would it be worth it? Time will tell.
