http://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-your-college-basketball-team-worth-1427903905


By ANDREW BEATON
Updated April 1, 2015 11:59 a.m. ET
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Undefeated Kentucky is on the brink of one of the greatest seasons in college-basketball history—but the Wildcats aren’t even the most valuable team in their own state, according to an annual study.

Louisville, which lost to Michigan State in the Elite Eight, remains the most valuable men’s basketball program in the country, worth $367.4 million—more than $50 million more than second-place Arizona—according to a valuation by Ryan Brewer, an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus.


To calculate what a college team would be worth on the open market, if it could be bought and sold like a pro team, Brewer analyzed each major program’s revenues and expenses and made cash-flow adjustments, risk assessments and growth projections for each.

Louisville benefits from a lucrative home arena, the KFC Yum! Center, and college basketball’s most obsessed market. Louisville has had the country’s highest TV ratings among metered markets in college-basketball programming for at least the last dozen years, according to ESPN data. Brewer noted, however, that the gap between first and second is shrinking.

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Overall, the value of major conference teams has dramatically spiked in the past three years, with Louisville’s value increasing more than 73% from $211.5 million in 2012. Kentucky, which places sixth nationally at $213.3 million, has nearly tripled its value in three years from $73.7 million and shot up from 16th overall.

As for the other teams in this weekend’s Final Four, Wisconsin ranks fifth at $221.7 million, Duke is ninth ($181.7 million) and Michigan State is 11th ($121.8 million).

The Badgers and Spartans are among six Big Ten Conference schools worth more than $100 million—the most of any conference. (The others: Ohio State, Indiana, Maryland and Purdue.) Next-best is the Atlantic Coast Conference, which has four schools topping $100 million. No other conference has more than one team worth more than nine figures.