Notre Dame football program worth more than Alabama’s

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Regardless of who wins tonight’s National Title Game between the Alabama and Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish will walk away with at least a moral victory. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Notre Dame’s football program is worth more (monetarily) than Alabama’s.

Ryan Brewer, an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus, calculated the intrinsic valuations for 115 of the teams in the top-tier Football Bowl Subdivision. Among other factors, the study looked at each program’s revenues and expenses and made cash-flow adjustments, risk assessments and growth projections for each school. The resulting figures represent what the teams might fetch if they could be bought and sold like pro franchises. (As a point of reference, the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars sold in late 2011 for about $760 million.)

According to the study, Notre Dame outperformed Alabama $597.4 million to $476.0 million, a difference of $121.4 million. The Texas Longhorns were ranked 1st with an anticipated value of $761.7 million. Notre Dame and Alabama placed 4th and 8th respectively. Despite being the program with the greatest estimated value Texas’ value dropped 5% from the previous year. Conversely, Michigan value of $731.9 million (good enough for 2nd) was an improvement of 18% from the previous year’s valuation.

2012 Conference Members by Worth.
(*excluding Wake Forest)

Conference – per team – total conference
SEC – $310.80 (14 teams) $4351.3
Big 10 – $298.19 (12 teams) $3578.3
Big 12 – $239.46 (10 teams) $2394.6
Pac 12 – $157.96 (12 teams) $1895.6
ACC – $139.60 (11 teams*) $1535.7
Big East – $73.66 (8 teams) $589.3

H/T WSJ