Ohio State University tops this year’s MVP list of the nation’s college athletics programs. No, not for the most valuable player. It is the most valuable program, according to a recent survey by CNBC.
In a new ranking of the 75 most valuable college athletic programs in the U.S., CNBC ranked Ohio State No. 1 — worth an estimated $1.32 billion.
CNBC’s rankings are limited to schools that participate in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS, which tend to attract top players, and excludes military academies such as the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and U.S. Naval Academy.
The Buckeyes earned nearly $280 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023, the most of any school, according to CNBC. Ohio State’s vast alumni network of more than 600,000, a fan base of more than 11 million, and boosters that donated nearly $60 million last year all contributed to that figure.
Ohio State’s football team regularly pulls attendance of more than 100,000 spectators at its games, which shows a strong fan base and bottom line.
In June, Ohio State Athletic Director Ross Bjork told The Dispatch that the department anticipated a $10 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2024. But Bjork reassured Ohio State’s Board of Trustees during its quarterly board meetings in November that the budget is now in a better position.
Ohio State just edged out the University of Texas at Austin, which came in second with a valuation of $1.28 billion, and Texas A&M University at third with $1.26 billion.
The only other Big Ten school in the top 10 most valuable athletics program rankings was the University of Michigan, which ranked No. 4 and worth $1.06 billion.
There were three other Big Ten schools among the top 20 programs: Penn State University ranked No. 11 and worth $924 million; the University of Wisconsin ranked No. 15 and worth $838 million; and the University of Oregon ranked No. 17 and worth $780 million.
CNBC’s list is dominated by Big Ten and SEC schools, mostly due to the conferences’ massive media rights deals.
In total, the SEC is worth roughly $13.3 billion, with an average of about $832 million per school. The Big Ten is close behind at about $13.2 billion, or an average of roughly $734 million per school, according to the CNBC study.
The ACC comes in third at roughly $10 billion, or about $558 million per school, and the Big 12 is worth about $6.7 billion, or about $420 million per school, the CNBC reports.
CNBC worked with Jason Belzer — publisher of AthleticDirectorU, which advises universities on name, image and likeness deals and athletic departments seeking private equity — to compile its rankings. Revenue figures are from the I.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for the fiscal year 2023.
Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.
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