Northwestern football program value?

The Athletic just updated their annual rankings of how much college football programs would be worth if they could be sold, and Northwestern's new football stadium appears to be a big reason why the "expected value" increased.

Last year, Northwestern was ranked No. 35 among Power Four schools with a hypothetical valuation of $406 million. Now, the program is down one spot to No. 36, but the estimated value has increased to $498 million.

The Wildcats were leap-frogged by Indiana (No. 38 to No. 22), Illinois (No. 36 to No. 30) and BYU (No. 50 to No. T-34). Northwestern jumped in front of TCU (No. 30 to No. 37) and NC State (No. 32 to No. 38).

Here was author Matt Baker's reasoning:

"Northwestern moved up as it prepares to open the nicest stadium in the country (the new Ryan Field) in October, even if its revenue streams don’t show up yet."

Here's how the 18 Big Ten teams ranked out of 68 Power Four teams total:

Ohio State (No. 2, $2.3B)
Michigan (No. 4, $2B)
USC (No. T-7, $1.6B)
Penn State (No. 10, $1.4B)
Oregon (No. 13, $1.13B)
Nebraska (No. T-15, $1.06B)
Washington (No. T-15, $1.06B)
Wisconsin (No. 19, $922M)
Iowa (No. 21, $806M)
Indiana (No. 22, $696M)
Michigan State (No. 24, $686M)
Minnesota (No. 28, $629M)
Illinois (No. 30, $568M)
Northwestern (No. 36, $498M)
Purdue (No. 39, $450M)
UCLA (No. 45, $363M)
Maryland (No. 46, $359M)
Rutgers (No. 52, $314M)

You can check out Baker's entire list here:

Northwestern football program value?

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