I didn’t find Kristi Dosh’s revenue comparison between the SEC and the Big Ten as compelling as her first story on the SEC – for one thing, as she notes, it’s hard to compare apples and oranges here because there’s no direct SEC analogue to the Big Ten Network – but one fact she cited caught my eye.
… A look at Ohio State’s expenses should explain why they’re perennial contenders for BCS bowls. They are spending almost $10 million more than the next biggest spender in the Big Ten (Wisconsin). They’re also spending almost double what their rival, Michigan, is spending, which could perhaps explain the results on the field. [Emphasis added.]
Does that remind you of a couple of other institutions?
… If you do the math, Georgia is only putting 25.8% of their football revenue back into the program. Meanwhile, the 2009 National Champion, Alabama, was putting 43.3% back into their program…
Is this a correlation that really doesn’t mean much, or are we seeing evidence that “you get what you pay for” has some relevance in big time college football?