Gamecock Value

The South Carolina Gamecocks football team is purportedly worth $69,000,000.00 making it the 12th most valuable college football team according to Forbes. The November article, which somehow escaped our notice at the time, explains its methodology as follows:

Our second annual ranking of the most valuable teams in college football is based on what the football programs contribute to four important beneficiaries: their university (the value of contributions from football to the institution for academic purposes, including scholarship payments for football players); athletic department (the net profit generated by the football program ultimately retained by the department); conference (the distribution of bowl game revenue); and local communities with a vested interest in the team (incremental spending in the county during home-game weekends). Our system weighs those four elements in declining order.

The Top 20 is as follows:

1) Notre Dame $101
2) Texas $ 92
3) Georgia $ 90
4) Michigan $ 85
5) Florida $ 84
6) LSU $ 76
7) Tennessee $ 74
8) Auburn $ 72
9) Alabama $ 72
10) Ohio State $ 71
11) Oklahoma $ 70
12) South Carolina $ 69
12) Penn State $ 69
14) Southern Cal $ 53
14) Arkansas $ 53
16) Texas A & M $ 50
16) Washington $ 50
18) Nebraska $ 49
19) Michigan State $ 44
20) Wisconsin $ 43

Obvious observations: 8 of the top 15 are from the SEC, which kind of makes me wonder what is wrong with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Miss St and Ole Miss? And what must the conference as a whole be worth?

I wouldn't have known how to guess at these rankings if I'd been asked, but I am a little suprised to see that Auburn is more valuable than Alabama. I also can't wait to see where Notre Dame will be on next year's list without a BS BCS appearance this year.

Did you notice who's missing (other than all the mid-majors who think they're real football teams now and yes I'm looking your way Big East)? Where is Florida State? Are they not worth atleast half of what Florida is worth? I wonder what all those commentators who say Bowden has the right to leave on his own terms, no matter how ruinous his continued prescence becomes, would say when the numbers appear to show that not only is Papa Bowden cheapening his legacy but he is sucking the equity out of the program before he goes. And now that I look at it where is the ACC at all?



Delenda est Clemson.