There is some good news out there, apparently, when it comes to the Arkansas basketball program.
Sure the Hogs just suffered through their second consecutive losing season and the program has been marred by suspensions, a bad Academic Progress Rate score and player attrition in recent years but that hasn’t stopped Forbes from ranking the Razorbacks as one of their “most valuable programs” in the nation.
Arkansas ranks 14th in the nation on Forbes’ third annual list, which was announced today.
The rankings, which obviously factor monetary gain, is highlighted with plenty of the mainstays in basketball — North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA. And Arkansas, once a national championship caliber program, is still near the top.
Here’s Forbes.com’s explanation of the rankings and how they come to list these schools based off of last season’ numbers.
Unlike professional teams, which can be bought and sold on the open market, college teams have value in terms of what kind of dividends they pay to their stakeholders. “Dividend” money is what’s left for the team’s university (for academic purposes, including scholarship payments for players) and athletic department (to support non-revenue sports) after the cost of running the basketball operation in question. It also includes what’s generated for its conference (the distribution of tournament revenue) and the community around the university (estimated incremental spending by visitors to the county that’s attributable to the program). In our scoring system, the first two factors were given the most weight, while county revenue was given the least.
And here’s the breakdown of the Razorbacks, according to Forbes:
14. Arkansas Razorbacks
Team Value: $14.6 million
Profit: $10.0 million
Head Coach: John Pelphrey
Conference: SEC
Previous Value Rank: 15
Fayetteville, Ark., Metro Population: 443,976
The Razorbacks, who topped the SEC West Division in attendance for the 16th straight year last season, drew more than 16,000 fans per game to Bud Walton Arena.
Arkansas is ranked the second-best program in the SEC on the list. Tops in the SEC is, of course, Kentucky at No. 2 in the nation with a team value of $26.2 million. North Carolina leads the list for the third year in a row with a team value of $29 million.
Three SEC schools are on the 20-team list, with Tennessee rounding things out for the conference at 16th.
Make sure to check out WholeHogSports.com and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more coverage. You can also follow us on Twitter for breaking news updates with @bmarcello and @wholehogsports.
