Are you looking to become the Jerry Jones of the Hawkeye state by purchasing the football teams at the University of Iowa or Iowa State? You’re going to need a football field’s worth of cash.
As the price tags for professional sports teams continue to increase in recent years, The Athletic posed an intriguing question: If college football programs could be bought and sold, what would they be worth? College teams, of course, are integrated within their universities and cannot be privately owned or sold like professional sports franchises.
However, with more prominent donors contributing financially to ensure their schools’ success athletically, and some schools exploring private equity partnerships to attract recruits, The Athletic imagined a world where colleges auction off their athletic programs to the highest bidder.
How did The Athletic determine how much college football teams are worth?
Staff at The Athletic used real-life acquisitions of professional teams to gauge purchase prices relative to a team’s revenue over the past three available years of data.
“NFL and NBA sales guided our ratios in the SEC and Big Ten, while the MLB and NHL were our rough benchmarks in the ACC and Big 12,” The Athletic’s Matt Baker wrote. “For each school in a Power 4 conference (plus Notre Dame), we factored in everything from prestige and championships to facility renovations, population trends and realignment scenarios.”
The site’s methodology treats a highly recognizable and iconic brand like Notre Dame more like the Los Angeles Lakers, while viewing a less prestigious program like Boston College more like the Kansas City Royals.
The Lakers’ longtime owners, the Buss family — led by Jeanie Buss — recently sold a majority stake to businessman and Cedar Rapids native Mark Walter for $10 billion.
Baker also noted that the finances of college football programs are often murky and inconsistent due to the way schools report revenue. Additionally, if this scenario were true, he noted some boosters and fans might inflate their teams’ valuations out of loyalty or rivalry.
“Do not take our numbers to the bank, literally or metaphorically,” he wrote. “Instead, consider this a fun attempt at blending back-of-the-envelope math with common sense to price college programs like their professional peers.”
How much did The Athletic estimate the Iowa Hawkeyes football team would sell for?
The Athletic rated Iowa as the 20th most valuable FBS college football program in the country, with a projected selling price of $709 million.
The Athletic reported that Iowa’s average football revenue over the past three years was $88.6 million, based on the school’s financial reports. For Iowa and other Big Ten Teams, The Athletic set the multiplier range as five to 13 times a program’s revenue, resulting in a final price of $709 million for the Hawkeyes.
For FY 2019, football-specific revenues at Iowa were nearly $82 million, according to the Register.
How much would the Iowa State Cyclones football team sell for, according to The Athletic?
Iowa State was ranked as the 45th most valuable college football program, valued at $331 million, with an average football revenue of $55.2 million.
For Big 12 and ACC teams, the multiplier was set at four to nine times a team’s revenue, reflecting these conferences’ “less prestige and more uncertainty.”
What are the top 10 most valuable college football programs, according to The Athletic?
These are the top college football programs that could attract selling prices akin to those of professional teams if they ever were to hit the open market:
How much are the top Big Ten college football teams worth, according to The Athletic?
How much are the top Big 12 college football teams worth, according to The Athletic?
Cooper Worth is a service/trending reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at cworth@gannett.com or follow him on X @CooperAWorth.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How much would Iowa or ISU football teams sell for? The Athletic ranks hypothetical values
Reporting by Cooper Worth, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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