The Hoosiers ranked ahead of Colorado, Miami and Purdue.
A new study published by The Wall Street Journal set out to identify and rank the country’s most valuable college football programs.
The list was led by Ohio State, Texas, Michigan and Georgia. The Indiana Hoosiers came in at 33rd in the list of 134 programs (no data is available for the nation’s service academies).
The study, conducted by Ryan Brewer, an associate professor of finance at IU Columbus, calculated a program’s total value by taking a look at top-line revenues, growth and drivers of cash flow. The resulting number is supposed to be what the program would go for in the hypothetical event of a sale.
At 33rd in the country, Indiana’s adjusted annual value comes out to $386,000,000. That puts it above programs like Colorado, North Carolina, Miami FL, South Carolina, Louisville and even rival Purdue, whose adjusted annual value in the study is $279,000,000.
It’s a clear hypothetical, but remains an interesting look into the program’s value with more money than ever flowing into the sport. This ranking depicts Indiana has one of the most valuable teams in the region, being above the likes of Purdue, Louisville and Cincinnati.