Congratulations, Wolverines - YOU’RE THE CHAMPIONS!!! 🏈🎉
Recently, the Michigan Wolverines pounded the Washington Huskies into submission to win the NCAA National Championship game. While fans celebrated the win, we (naturally) wondered how much of a financial win this might be, and who might be the biggest winners of all those dollars.
Here are Five Fast Facts on the money associated with a football national championship:
- 📰 Loads Of Pub - Similar to the Super Bowl, the exposure of the NCAA football championship is HUGE. It’s hard to estimate, but with the media coverage across the board, the free advertising for the university and home city is staggering. TCU estimated receiving $2.1 billion in media coverage even before last year’s championship game. Leverage the hype!
- 💰 Direct Payouts - Each conference of the teams in the playoff receives $6 million in a direct payout. It’s entirely up to the conference how this gets distributed, and they all do it a bit differently. There’s no extra for reaching the championship game itself, but each of those teams gets travel expenses, which this year is just under $3 million per game. Dang, we’d love that for a travel budget…
- 💲 Player Benefits - It’s only been a couple years under the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules that allow players to finally be compensated for their success on the field, but the money has come quickly. Michigan players in particular are winning here, with quarterback J.J. McCarthy pulling down $1.4 million in NIL money, the 11th highest in the country. Running back Blake Corum has secured almost $900k. Not too shabby for a 20-something, right?
- 📈 The Flutie Effect - There’s an academic phenomenon called the Flute Effect, where lower profile schools suddenly get huge boosts from top football performance. It came from how the former Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie’s miracle wins in 1984 boosted applications to BC by 30% for the next two years, which then pushed BC into much more exclusive company, benefitting the whole university. After the 2021 championship, the University of Georgia’s program got a 13% boost in revenue from record donations of almost $90 million. After playing in the national championship last year, summer applications to TCU were up big time and 31% of those selected TCU as their first choice.
- 💙 The Bluest Blood - Michigan isn’t one of those lower profile schools - it’s already a “blue blood” program, and not just because of its colors! It’s got the winningest program in college football history, has one of the biggest football budgets in the country (well over $200 million) and is widely known for both sports and academics. So, the boost they get from this win won’t be that big in terms of percentages, but it will be a boost nonetheless. The rich get richer.
🔥Bottom line: And this doesn’t even take into account all the money rolling in from merchandising and licensed products, which has got to be sky high! We won’t know for some time just how big a financial win this has been, but it’s certain to be substantial. Enjoy the win, Michigan - both on the field and in the wallet!
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