Monday, April 02, 2012

If CBB Were MLB, Would Purdue Be Considered "Big Market"?

"Hey, you're slippery!"
"Heehee! So are you!"
According to the Wall Street Journal today (and, by extension, an IU-PU-Columbus assistant professor of finance), the Boilermakers would be the 18th-most valuable college basketball program in the land, if CBB programs could be bought and sold like professional franchises. Instead of, you know, just the players being able to be bought and sold in a lot of cases.

I was not surprised to see programs like Kansas, OSU, UNC and Duke on the list. I was, however, surprised to see Louisville at #1, Minny at #10 and Northwestern at #20. 

Check out the rest of the Top 20 below.


Thanks to reader Greg for the heads-up.

7 comments:

boilerbugle said...

I'd really like to see the numbers on this. Maybe all those empty gold chairs bumped purdue into the big time. Personally, I'd rather the boilermakers be "small market" and play to a full crowd.

The Accidental Expat said...

Must be some sort of error-- where are all the mighty Big East teams-- only 2 in the top 20?!

Not sure of the metrics used to come up with these numbers, but the B1G dominates with 6 teams out of the 20. Suck it, Big East-- can't wait to hear you grouse about "bias."

JD said...

Every Big Ten team is considered “big market” in the world of college athletics. I believe only the SEC has better television revenue from their Tier 1 rights with ESPN and no other conference comes close in revenue from their Tier 2 (BTN) rights. A recent Forbes list of the 20 most valuable programs had Purdue at 20 in the nation, but was 7th in the Big Ten behind (in order) Indiana, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan State and Minnesota. The fact that the Big Ten made up over one-third of this list shows how much of a "have" the Big Ten is.

However, I do think this list should be labeled “most profitable” instead of “most valuable,” because the list really only deals with profits and ignores brand recognition, recruiting budgets, size of fan base or other things that are hard to assign a value on. Either way, Purdue is in good shape and the KFC Yum! Center is a money making machine.

Pierce Roe said...

I would love to see how they calculated this one. Where are MSU and UConn, among other huge programs? There is no way Purdue is more valuable than MSU. UNLV and Virginia in the top ten. What the hell?

Unknown said...

Must've mixed up Minny & MSU.

Surprised there's no UConn or Georgetown.

J Money said...

Contact Ryan Brewer, IU-PU Columbus.

Plang said...

I agree with JD - it is about money in vs. total net worth. And I am sure that the BTN makes a huge impact on those numbers. When I really thought about it, it makes sense that places like UNLV and Minnesota would be ahead of us because of where they are at, not what they are. They are in big cities and can demand more money for advertising rights. Those not in big cities are banking on their names and boosters. The only one on this list that has me scratching my head is Kansas State. That just tells me that they must run things very well there. A school like Texas may not be on the list because not enough people care about the basketball program there.