People underestimate the value, money wise, that college football has on the world. However, as this Forbes article on the 15 most valuable college football programs points out, a few big-time programs do quite well, thank you. Notre Dame’s program tops the list at a value of $97 million, while the University of Texas’ program slides in at second at $88 million and Texas A&M’s program checks in at no. 15 with a value of $53 million. By the way, Notre Dame remains the most valuable program despite being consistently the most overrated program on the big-time college scene these days. With last night’s loss to LSU in the Sugar Bowl, the Irish have now lost nine straight bowl games since beating Texas A&M 24-21 in the 1994 Cotton Bowl.A couple of surprises: Ohio State is only sixth on the list at $71 million, while the USC on the list is not the University of Southern California. Rather, it’s the University of South Carolina at no. 14 with a value of $57 million. As you might expect, only teams from the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten Conference and Big 12 Conference made the Forbes list because those conferences have the most lucrative television deals with CBS, ESPN and ABC.
Finally, despite the value of these big-time programs, it is still decidedly minor league — most NFL franchises are worth at least 10 times more than the most valuable college program.
