Gators among most valuable college football teams in country

Florida checks in at No. 10 in new Forbes ranking; FSU lone ACC team at No. 17

PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – The Florida Gators may be unranked, but at least they're valuable.

Forbes released its list of most valuable college football teams Monday, and the University of Florida is ranked among the top 10.

Florida leads the state, hauling in $111 million in revenue over a three-year period and turning a profit of $67 million. That's good enough for 10th among all college football programs in the nation.

Forbes compiles its rankings based on athletic department financial filings made to the NCAA and Department of Education. Revenue and profit estimates are three-year averages for the 2014, 2015 and 2016 seasons, rounded to the nearest million.

Florida State ranks 17th, earning $88 million in revenue for a profit of $41 million. That's significantly less than what the Gators earned, even though the Seminoles had more success on the football field and played in major bowls during that three-year period.

The revenue gap between the Gators and the Seminoles was $23 million.

 

Nevertheless, Florida State was the only Atlantic Coast Conference school to make the list.

The Southeastern Conference led the way with nine schools, including No. 1 Texas A&M. The Aggies generated $148 million in revenue, pocketing $107 million. Perhaps that's how Texas A&M could afford to poach first-year head coach Jimbo Fisher from Florida State with a 10-year, $75 million guaranteed contract.

Florida was fourth-best among SEC schools behind Texas A&M, Alabama (No. 4), Auburn (No. 8) and Louisiana State (No. 9).

This is the first Forbes college football valuation ranking since 2015.

Seven Big Ten Conference schools (Michigan at No. 3, Ohio State at No. 5, Penn State at No. 14, Michigan State at No. 22, Iowa at No. 23 and Wisconsin at No. 24) made the list, while three Big 12 Conference (Texas at No. 2, Oklahoma at No. 6 and Texas Tech at No. 25) and Pacific 12 Conference schools (Oregon at No. 12, Southern California at No. 18 and Washington at No. 19) each found a spot in the rankings.