Iowa falls off Forbes' list of 'most valuable' football teams

Forbes Magazine put out its annual list of most valuable college football programs today and the Iowa Hawkeyes dropped off.

Last year, Forbes listed Iowa at No. 20, with a value of $48 million and a football profit of $24. The Hawkeyes were bumped this year, even though Forbes did list head coach Kirk Ferentz as the fifth "most powerful coach" in the game.

Here's what Forbes wrote on Ferentz, "The Hawkeyes haven't been particularly competitive of late, but Ferentz's contract offers him some incredible job security. If he were to be terminated without cause, Ferentz would be entitled to 75% of his remaining contract, worth about $21 million."

Here are the links: the 2012 college football program values, the 2011 values and the 2012 coaches values.

The buyout is around $20 million now. You might remember that being mentioned here, in the Central Michigan postgame way back in September.

BTW, Forbes had Texas as the most valuable program in each of the last two seasons at $129 million in '11 and $133 million in '12.

For fiscal year 2011, Iowa football ranked sixth in the Big Ten in revenue with $44,503,833, just behind Michigan State and just ahead of Wisconsin. Ohio State was No. 1 at $79 million, $9 million ahead of No. 2 Michigan.

This figure includes ticket sales, direct program contributions and TV/media rights. Iowa made $26.6 million in athletics contributions in '11, with $7.3 million directed exclusively to football. Football expenses are a little more than $20.5 million, which is fourth in the Big Ten.

We covered the Ferentz contract and Iowa AD Gary Barta's reasoning in this post from November.

Iowa knocked out Oklahoma State in the Forbes' 20 last season with $5 million more in football profit. This year, Ohio State was No. 20 this year with $63 million, taking hits for one less home game and a lesser bowl (Gator compared to the Sugar). Michigan State was No. 19.

Here's Forbes' explanation for its values:

"Our college football valuations use a weighted scoring system to measure the value created by each team for four key areas. The four components, in order of weight, are the team's university, athletic department, conference and local community. Academic value is the football profit (football revenue less expenses) directed toward the university's academic programming, including football scholarships, while athletic value is considered the remaining team profit used to support other sports teams and athletic initiatives. Conference value is the distribution of bowl game payouts to fellow conference members, and community value is the economic impact of visiting fans detailed above."

The injection into the local economy is why Nebraska is No. 11 this year. Forbes also points out that UNL paid Southern Mississippi more than $2 million basically to buy back a home game next season.

College football is becoming as stratified as Major League Baseball.

Is Iowa the Royals? The Cardinals? Braves? It's certainly not one of the Yankees. You know who the Yankees are.