Two facts are indisputable about Oklahoma football: The Sooners' 950 all-time wins are the sixth most in college football history and their seven national championships in the Associated Press Poll era are tied for the fourth most.
Wins and championships are certainly the most conventional way of evaluating a college team's value or importance. But what would a program like Oklahoma football be valued at, in financial terms, on the open market?
Of course, Oklahoma, like any college football program, is not for sale, and that probably will never become a reality. The way the college athletic landscape is evolving, however, such a notion doesn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.
"Private equity is already circling (college) athletic departments," The Wall Street Journal reported.
An article this week in The Wall Street Journal reported on an analysis done by Ryan Brewer, an associate professor at Indiana University-Columbus. Brewer studied the public financial information of the 131 college football teams to determine what each program would be worth if it could be bought and sold like a professional franchise.
According to WSJ staff writer Andrew Beaton, "Brewer looks at top-line revenues (from the latest available financial data), growth and drivers of cash flow and makes projections about the sustainability of the operations, just as he would any other business. He combed through years of data (for all 131 teams)...Then, after breaking down everything from Television revenue to trends in enrollment, his spreadsheet spits out an answer."
The No. 10 team in the analysis was Oklahoma, with an enterprise value of $881 million.
Five SEC teams ranked ahead of the Sooners in this analysis, and three more ranked just behind. Alabama, Auburn, Nebraska and Florida followed Oklahoma, all valued between $846 million and $793 million.
Brewer concluded that Ohio State is the most valuable program in college football with a projected value of $1.96 billion, followed closely by Texas at $1.9 billion.
Brewer's analysis showed that nine different football programs would be worth over $1 billion on the open market: 3. Michigan ($1.6 billion), 4. Georgia ($1.34 billion), 5. Notre Dame ($1.3 billion) 6. LSU ($1.06 billion), 7. Penn State ($1.03 billion), 8. Tennessee ($1.02 billion), 9. Texas A&M ($1 billion).
Beaton wrote that Brewer's analysis accounts for factors that might not appear on any balance sheet.
"Alabama, for example, used to get a bump simply because of the value one person brought to the program, but Nick Saban is no longer the coach of the Crimson Tide, and the team missed the expanded playoff without him," he wrote.
Beaton reported that Brewer envisions a scenario where college football teams become the subject of bidding wars between the people already pouring cash into the sport: ultrawealthy alumni.