Oklahoma football valued at $1 billion, the WSJ reports
By Chip Rouse
Value in college football is typically measured in championships, and Oklahoma football is among the game’s elite in that category.
The Sooners are deservedly viewed as one of college football’s elite brands. Oklahoma has seven championships at the national level, good enough to rank third among all schools since the Associated Press first started recognizing national champions in college football in 1936. Only Alabama (10) and Notre Dame (8) have more over that span of time.
Championships are won on the field by student-athletes classified as amateurs (in the sense that they do not profit monetarily from their services), but the adage “it takes money to make money” as well as win championships) is as true in college football as anywhere else in the capitalist society in which we all live.
A study published in the Wall Street Journal lists the value of Oklahoma football at $1 billion (that’s “billion” with a “b”), the third highest in college football. It’s interesting how that parallels with OU’s ranking in terms of national championships won.
Oklahoma Sooners Football
The study, conducted by Ryan Brewer, an associate professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus, concluded, that Ohio State is the most valued team in college football, with a worth valued at $1.5 billion. Texas is No. 2, valued at $1.24 billion. Ohio State, Texas and Oklahoma are the only three schools whose value, according to the Indiana University analysis, reaches the $1 billion level.
The study showed that the 10 Big 12 Conference members had an average value of $324 million. That compares to $523 million for the SEC, the highest of the Power Five conferences.
The most recent report on NCAA finances (2015-16), put together by USA Today, ranked Oklahoma sixth in terms of revenue from athletic programs. The USA Today data base showed OU with annual athletic program revenue of $150.3 million. Texas is No. 2 in that category, behind Texas A&M, with reported revenue of $188 million. Not surprisingly, six SEC schools are ranked in the top 10 based on athletic revenue.
According to the study, the values of teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision grew by 26 percent over the 2015 numbers.