Wisconsin, Indiana much more valuable than Marquette

[Warrior Code]

According to Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2015/03/16/college-basketballs-most-valuable-teams-louisville-on-top-kansas-close-behind/

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emdm45eleeg/15-marquette-golden-eag/

[Warrior Code]

But #1 most valuable to ME, hey?

[Warrior Code]

Derrick Wilson. Recruiting. Crapshoot. Crean.

(More page views this way.)

[Warrior Code]

If that doesn't work, nothing will.

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

Guess I'll have to cheer for Louisville now.

Honestly who cares.

[Warrior Code]

Guess I'll have to cheer for Louisville now.

Honestly who cares.

Forgive me for trying to start a conversation about brand worth/perception of college basketball teams. Do the numbers match the results? What do we learn about conference affiliation in terms of money? Northwestern is only there because of the B1G. Tennessee surprised me.  Is Marquette's #15 rating matching up with its #2 budget? I just want to talk about something other than Tom Crean (who doesn't coach here) and Diamond Stone (who isn't coming here). My mistake.

I even changed the title of the thread to try to pander to the audience.

[JoeSmith1721]

Wow I was not expecting Marquette to even be on the list with all those public schools. Especially ahead of UCLA, Gtown, Texas, etc.

[mu03eng]

Wow I was not expecting Marquette to even be on the list with all those public schools. Especially ahead of UCLA, Gtown, Texas, etc.

That's the thing, and why I haven't really commented.....I don't trust the data/methodology Forbes is using so I don't think it's really applicable to Marquette.  Plus I'd argue that Kentucky has way more brand recognition nationally than Louisville does but that doesn't seem to be accounted for in the "value" of the program.

[GooooMarquette]

Wow I was not expecting Marquette to even be on the list with all those public schools. Especially ahead of UCLA, Gtown, Texas, etc.

My thought as well.  Looks like Cuse and Duke are the only private schools ahead of MU. The rest are huge state universities.  Pretty good company, all things considered.

[dgies9156]

A couple of things you have to ask about this:

  1) What is revenue? I assume it should be ticket sales, conference fees (i.e., payment for teams in tournament), profits for apparal sales etc., and, potentially an allocation of athletic contributions. The allocation and apparal sales is tricky for most schools, which must make the allocation between basketball and other sports. At Marquette, as well as at many other schools, you can't get a lower bowl seat without a contribution. Period. How much of this is considered basketball revenue and how they estimated this is, well, financial alchemy.

  2) Hard expenses are easy. Coaches salaries, transportation, arena rental and staffing (as appropriate), recruiting costs (though they estimated this is beyond me), operational expenses associated with the basketball program etc.

  3) Soft costs. Salaries for players (i.e., scholarships, health care costs, etc) appear to be estimated at a transfer cost based on the highest "book price" available in the marketplace. Most market participants are not likely to incur costs of college education equal to the charge. In other words, if Marquette is bartering a college education in return for basketball services, the cost should be estimated based on Marquette's cost to produce the service. I'm not even sure Marquette's administration knows what the cost to produce a Marquette education is. It's unfair to assume Marquette has a 50% or more cost disadvantage against a major university. Also, if you're bringing contributions in through basketball and allocating the results to other sports, you might want to recognize the revenue and then allocate a transfer expense.

  4) Overhead. How much of university operations is allocated on the basketball program? And what's the method? If it is revenue from basketball, it probably will bear a disproportionate amount of allocation (and maybe it should). That penalizes Marquette against other schools with monster athletic programs where costs are spread across numerous sports, including football.

All totaled, this is a nice conversation starter, but the arbitrary rules governing valuation on these programs are high. There is so much guesswork here than very few of the valuations Forbes came up with would carry muster in the private sector.

Short answer -- fun to debate but technically meaningless.

[mu03eng]

A couple of things you have to ask about this:

  1) What is revenue? I assume it should be ticket sales, conference fees (i.e., payment for teams in tournament), profits for apparal sales etc., and, potentially an allocation of athletic contributions. The allocation and apparal sales is tricky for most schools, which must make the allocation between basketball and other sports. At Marquette, as well as at many other schools, you can't get a lower bowl seat without a contribution. Period. How much of this is considered basketball revenue and how they estimated this is, well, financial alchemy.

  2) Hard expenses are easy. Coaches salaries, transportation, arena rental and staffing (as appropriate), recruiting costs (though they estimated this is beyond me), operational expenses associated with the basketball program etc.

  3) Soft costs. Salaries for players (i.e., scholarships, health care costs, etc) appear to be estimated at a transfer cost based on the highest "book price" available in the marketplace. Most market participants are not likely to incur costs of college education equal to the charge. In other words, if Marquette is bartering a college education in return for basketball services, the cost should be estimated based on Marquette's cost to produce the service. I'm not even sure Marquette's administration knows what the cost to produce a Marquette education is. It's unfair to assume Marquette has a 50% or more cost disadvantage against a major university. Also, if you're bringing contributions in through basketball and allocating the results to other sports, you might want to recognize the revenue and then allocate a transfer expense.

  4) Overhead. How much of university operations is allocated on the basketball program? And what's the method? If it is revenue from basketball, it probably will bear a disproportionate amount of allocation (and maybe it should). That penalizes Marquette against other schools with monster athletic programs where costs are spread across numerous sports, including football.

All totaled, this is a nice conversation starter, but the arbitrary rules governing valuation on these programs are high. There is so much guesswork here than very few of the valuations Forbes came up with would carry muster in the private sector.

Short answer -- fun to debate but technically meaningless.

spot on analysis

[Benny B]

Haven't read the thread, but of course those states are much more valuable than a city in the U.P. of Michigan.

[Warrior Code]

A couple of things you have to ask about this:

  1) What is revenue? I assume it should be ticket sales, conference fees (i.e., payment for teams in tournament), profits for apparal sales etc., and, potentially an allocation of athletic contributions. The allocation and apparal sales is tricky for most schools, which must make the allocation between basketball and other sports. At Marquette, as well as at many other schools, you can't get a lower bowl seat without a contribution. Period. How much of this is considered basketball revenue and how they estimated this is, well, financial alchemy.

  2) Hard expenses are easy. Coaches salaries, transportation, arena rental and staffing (as appropriate), recruiting costs (though they estimated this is beyond me), operational expenses associated with the basketball program etc.

  3) Soft costs. Salaries for players (i.e., scholarships, health care costs, etc) appear to be estimated at a transfer cost based on the highest "book price" available in the marketplace. Most market participants are not likely to incur costs of college education equal to the charge. In other words, if Marquette is bartering a college education in return for basketball services, the cost should be estimated based on Marquette's cost to produce the service. I'm not even sure Marquette's administration knows what the cost to produce a Marquette education is. It's unfair to assume Marquette has a 50% or more cost disadvantage against a major university. Also, if you're bringing contributions in through basketball and allocating the results to other sports, you might want to recognize the revenue and then allocate a transfer expense.

  4) Overhead. How much of university operations is allocated on the basketball program? And what's the method? If it is revenue from basketball, it probably will bear a disproportionate amount of allocation (and maybe it should). That penalizes Marquette against other schools with monster athletic programs where costs are spread across numerous sports, including football.

All totaled, this is a nice conversation starter, but the arbitrary rules governing valuation on these programs are high. There is so much guesswork here than very few of the valuations Forbes came up with would carry muster in the private sector.

Short answer -- fun to debate but technically meaningless.

Ahhhh, finally some validation.

But really, you are right of course. So much gray area when defining worth. I just found it interesting that our beloved - albeit relatively small - school was rated so highly on this list. Not to mention the fact that we are not in the tourney and severely lacking other MU hoops-related topics.

Too bad they don't include which schools have private jets.

[WarriorInNYC]

Haven't read the thread, but of course those states are much more valuable than a city in the U.P. of Michigan.

+1