SIAP: M is the 4th most valuable college football program

Submitted by rposly on January 8th, 2019 at 6:52 PM

Haven't seen this posted, so apologies if I missed it.  Article in today's WSJ ranking the value of college football programs.  Mentions how OSU's number fell quite a bit this year due to the Urban stuff.  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-much-is-your-college-football-team-worth-11546875092

1. Texas

2. Ohio State

3. Alabama

4. Michigan

5. Notre Dame

6. Georgia

7. Oklahoma

8. Auburn

9. LSU

10. Tennessee

...

13. Penn State

14. Wisconsin

15. Nebraska

18. Iowa

20. Michigan State

anwonadell

January 8th, 2019 at 6:59 PM ^

I don't have a WSJ subscription, so I couldn't read the article, but is this a listing of the college football programs who are best at capitalizing upon the free labor provided by their scholar-athletes? Or does this capture something else?

Not trying to be snarky/soapbox-y, sincerely asking what this measures.

anwonadell

January 8th, 2019 at 7:17 PM ^

Sure, it seems a little silly to me that there are folks making gobs of money off of the labor of college athletes, but that's not what I wanted my post to be about. 

Just trying to understand: if the football program is valuable, who is seeing that value? Is it a measure of the athletic director who's most well-off? Whose football facilities are would be worth the most if they were sold for scraps?

 

 

East German Judge

January 8th, 2019 at 7:36 PM ^

Oh BTW, they do get paid:

  • Tuition at a potentially great academic school - please do not go there with the they do not have time bit.  Those student athletes have the passion, aptitude, and time management skills can and do major in something other than General Studies, which btw is not a bad alternative.  BTW, Noah - Aerospace Engineering says Hi!
  • Room & Board
  • Monthly Stipend
  • Excellent practice facilities, coaching, and training for the game and potentially career they would like to have.  3 - 4 years of private training would cost them an arm and a leg.

And BTW, the money that the revenue sports makes helps to pay for the cost for all the other sports, for the 850 or so other athletes who proudly wear the block M.  

Blue in Paradise

January 8th, 2019 at 11:36 PM ^

Uhhhhhmmmmmm - there are a lot of people already disrupting the system via the black market.  They are called bag men and they fill the void between the value of the players and what the players are currently receiving.

Also, your free market analogy falls flat because a minor league in sports inherently needs to work in conjunction with a “major” league - the NFL in this case, with is a monopoly.  The NFL could set up a minor league to effectively wipe the talent out of CFB at any time it chooses; however, that would require paying these kids and the NFL is currently a beneficiary of the current “free labor” system and is not incentivized to change it.

A better example that you could use would be to say that someone should create a competitor to the NFL which includes signing / drafting kids out of high school.  Problem there is that the NFL can and has (on multiple occasions) used its monopoly power to squash upstart leagues.  That gets into a bigger legal / political debate around monopoly power.

To be honest, I don’t think there is a need for colleges to pay the players.  Just let them sell their image rights, a right that literally every American (outside of NCAA athletes) holds.  The Rashan Gary and Tua-level athletes will get a ton of cash and most others will get much less or even nothing.

The thing that annoyed me about your original post is that you are trying to tell a group of individuals what they are worth - nobody cares what you think they are worth (just like nobody cares what I think they are worth).  Let the market determine their worth just like everyone else.

Blue in Paradise

January 9th, 2019 at 11:21 AM ^

First of all, nobody gives a shit about your opinion (nor my opinion) on what college football SHOULD be.  This is really a stupid argument that irks me - there are a lot of things in this world that don't resemble what I think they should be.  Who the fuck are we as random people to say how things should be?  In REALITY (the world we actually live in - not your fantasyland) it is a massive, multi-billion dollar industry where lots of people make a lot of money with spin off industries adding billions more (shoes, apparel, real estate, food and beverage, etc...).  Thus, American society has spoken and you are wrong.

Second of all, "self-serving" is a LOL.  I am a 45 year old guy who is 5'9" and runs a 6.8/40.  There is nobody offering me anything to play football.  On a more serious note, I have no financial skin in the game - I don't own the MDen or a bar in Ann Arbor.

Most importantly, where do you get off putting your hand in Tua or Rashan's (Trevor Lawrence is a better example now that Rashan has reclaimed his economic rights) pockets telling them that they don't have the same right as every other Amercan.  I honestly don't get this argument where a bunch of people say that it will open Pandora's box or that these guys shouldn't have this right?  There is a well established system of laws and regulations that govern image right contract law.

Name a non-NCAA athlete that doesn't have the right to sell their image and name rights.  Literally, name one other U.S. citizen who doesn't have this right.  Even politicians (where there can be a conflict of interest) have this right.

Blue in Paradise

January 9th, 2019 at 9:23 AM ^

The university makes a few hundred million per year and the players get a package worth +/- $100,000 p.a.  That sounds like a pretty nice wash for the major football schools.

For a lot of the Michigan players, the scholarship is actually redundant since their families make less than $160,000 annually and wouldn’t have to pay tuition anyway.

 

gustave ferbert

January 9th, 2019 at 9:44 AM ^

The market does value them.  It's the difference between going to a school like Adrian college or a full ride scholarship to Michigan. 

You're also overlooking one very important reality.  These players are taken care of after they graduate.   If you play football at Michigan you are granted access to an impressive network of boosters.  Unless you are a complete jackass, you are essentially set for life.  

I know personally several players after their playing days who went to work for Al Glick, Steve Ross, and others.  So I understand your point and I respect your position.  But at the same time I would have to disagree that these athletes are being taken advantage of. 

trustBlue

January 9th, 2019 at 1:32 AM ^

Let's not be coy. Title IX doesnt prevent players from being able to exploit their own likeness or to receive compensation from someone outside of the university. That's simply an NCAA decision to ban the compensation of athletes - something that wouldn't apply to a scholarship math student or any other student on campus. 

rposly

January 8th, 2019 at 7:09 PM ^

It's an annual study conducted by 

Ryan Brewer, an associate professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus.

Brewer’s study calculates what a college team would be worth on the open market if it could be bought and sold like a professional sports franchise. Brewer analyzes each program’s revenues and expenses along with cash-flow adjustments, risk assessments and growth projections.

old98blue

January 8th, 2019 at 8:18 PM ^

I've got an idea let's get rid of Athletics at colleges and universities all together and then how many of these kids would even have this opportunity to earn a degree? In a lot of cases Athletics give kids an opportunity to better their lives, let's not ruin this.

Start paying players and you can kiss Athletics goodbye at the Division II level and the D1 level at a  lot of smaller schools.Hell even Eastern Michigan cut softball and a few other programs just to save money so let's pay basketball players and football players and say f*** the rest of the student-athletes because your sports don't make money. Football and basketball  at a lot of school don't make money

What they do get is if they are a top athlete they get the opportunity to move on to the next level and if they're not in that Elite status they get their tuition paid for which is saving them several hundred thousand dollars in student loans. Not to mention clothing and food that other students eating ramen noodles don't get.

footballguy

January 8th, 2019 at 8:30 PM ^

I was a collegiate athlete on scholarship in a non revenue sport and I disagree with your take.

I took advantage of the current system, but if it means schools have to cut programs or non revenue sports become self funded clubs, so be it. There's just now way big time D1 football players or basketball players shouldn't be getting more than what they get

BlueHenBlue

January 8th, 2019 at 9:14 PM ^

Any sort of estimate would be based on alot of assumptions and existing social constructs:

  • The NFL retains their 3 year rule on eligible players AND...
  • The oligopoly (CFB on Saturdays, NFL on Sundays) continues to exist between 2 leagues that have to outright pay for their talent.
  • The ability to pay players outright and how much would not shake up the current conference and bowl alignment structure based on perceived competitiveness.
  • An audience would still watch and root for pro players who are no longer really students anymore at their alma mater.
  • Well, if amateurism goes out the window, then why would eligibility be restricted to just 4 years then?
  • That broadcast rights at state-supported institutions should be sold exclusively to the highest bidder, with revenue allocations determined by a non-elected administrator.
  • What about Title IX and equal pay?

So, a big can of worms here.

Alton

January 9th, 2019 at 11:03 AM ^

Pretty easy to ballpark.

(a) How much does the school bring in?

(b) Given that both NBA and NFL salaries are about 45-55 percent of the team's revenue, let's assume that's fair market value.

So, here are your answers.

(a) Michigan football brings in about $110MM a year.

(b) So $55MM for player salaries, or assuming 110 players on the team, including walk-ons, average salary per player of about $500K.  Given the disparity between best-paid and worst-paid players on an NFL team, let's say the non-playing walk-ons get $0, just like now, the non-starter scholarship players get $100K or more, just like now, average starters get about $500K, and a handful of 5-star types get maybe $5 million a year.

That seems to be pretty close to fair market value, and it passes the smell test IMO.

Alton

January 9th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^

Not a plan; just a straight answer to "what is market value for a football player at Michigan?"

I agree--actually paying $55MM as player salaries in football alone would destroy college sports.  But $55MM as player salaries would be just about market value, which was the question.  Instead Michigan is paying about $8.5MM (~$100K scholarship, 85 players).  

 

Alton

January 10th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^

Wait, what?

He was asking "fair market value" of football (and basketball) players.  "Fair market value" of field hockey players would be calculated differently.  Also, football is the only sport with 85 scholarships, so even spreading them evenly would result in a different number.

Or perhaps I don't understand the point being made here.  If that's the case, I apologize.

old98blue

January 8th, 2019 at 9:39 PM ^

So using your argument you yourself would have had to paid for college I also would have and my daughter would have. I have no regrets and I know she doesn't in fact she even got her Master's paid for by staying on as a grad assistant for 2 years an opportunity she wouldn't have had if softball scholarships weren't there for her

DGM06

January 8th, 2019 at 9:01 PM ^

The solution is really simple: allow everyone the opportunity to profit from their likeness. The school wouldn’t be paying the players at all, so title IX never comes into play. Everyone should have the OPPORTUNITY to profit, the open market will dictate what is fair. 

 

dcloren2121

January 8th, 2019 at 7:07 PM ^

I think this is all to be taken with a very large grain of salt.  Pretty sure it wasn't 6 months ago that Forbes released a different list where the top 3 went Texas A&M/Texas/Michigan.

FauxMo

January 8th, 2019 at 7:32 PM ^

Hmmmmm, you know what other organization has an incredibly high valuation with between mediocre and terrible recent actual performance? So, yay, I guess? 

180907100732-elon-musk-smokes-marijuana-podcast-1-large-169.jpg

FauxMo

January 8th, 2019 at 7:35 PM ^

Is it OK if I would prefer to be Clemson - no top 10 valuation, but two NCs over the last three years? Cause I'd be OK with that... 

footballguy

January 8th, 2019 at 7:54 PM ^

Getting a scholarship is definitely not the same thing as getting paid lol 

I fucking hate this argument

Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to a comment earlier in this thread

UM Fan from Sydney

January 9th, 2019 at 7:40 AM ^

You’re out of your mind if you don’t think getting a free ride to college is not the same as getting paid. There are millions of non-athletes who would kill to get a free ride to college. Student loans are one of the highest contributors to debt in the USA. These guys get a free ride simply because they’re good at a sport. I get it, though. I’m not angry at the system. If fans like us were not so onsessive with sports, then these guys would probably not go to college for free and professional athletes would not be paid millions for playing a game. We are to blame for this system.

Leatherstocking Blue

January 9th, 2019 at 10:00 AM ^

I believe the top college athletes - those who feel they will definitely be playing in the NBA and NFL- do not consider the scholarship as payment. In fact, I will say they consider it a burden and hassle especially at an academically challenging school. Most other athletes, the non-revenue athletes, the lower rated guys in the revenue sports, see the scholarship as an opportunity but not the 5 stars.

Of course, if you are an academically-oriented high school kid who is also a decent athlete, athletics might give you an edge in admissions and a way to pay for college. More impressively, the female athletes, lacking a professional league in most sports, usually do well both athletically and academically.

footballguy

January 9th, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^

So if my mom needs help paying her rent, heat, electric, and water THIS month, how does a scholarship help with that? 

Tuition also is somewhat an arbitrary number. 

Again, the only people that think it's the same thing are people who had no money problems growing up

footballguy

January 8th, 2019 at 8:08 PM ^

Lol same thing with Michigan having such good odds to win the title, or Shea having such good end of season odds to win the Heisman. I feel like our fanbase likes throwing away their money more than any other fanbase (although buying merch isn't really throwing it away, but incessant gambling definitely is)