I was waiting for this. I posted on the pay site for us Members Only. But...
They used a method that includes these 5 categories
1. Football (for better or worse, Sagarin ratings over the last 5 years)
2. Academics (US News and World Report)
3. All Sports Ranking (Sears Cup)
4. Attendance
5. Viewership (Games over 1 million viewers)
Okay, the site is not behind a paywall unless you go to SI.com on a daily basis because I think you are allowed a few free articles a month. Anyways some excerpts:
Football: "The top school: Alabama, to the surprise of no one. The worst: Kansas, also the surprise of no one."
Academics: LOLOLOL......"The top academic school among the Power 5: Stanford. The school at the
bottom: West Virginia."
All Sports: The top overall athletic program: Texas, for the second straight year. The laggard of the Power 5: Cincinnati, which didn’t have much to back up that breakthrough football season.
Attendance: The top draw: Michigan in the Big House. Fewest butts in seats: Duke, which last year averaged a sad 15,424 fans per home game.
Viewership: Believe it or not, Oklahoma. The worst?? Oregon State, Rutgers and Duke.
Which is hilarious and why future expansions are not necessarily going to be about markets because here is what they said: "Citing media markets can be misleading; Rutgers being in the New York market doesn’t mean the Scarlet Knights are delivering an audience."
The top overall school is not surprising. Ohio State, closely followed by....Michigan (check the ratings and attendance and academics and all sports).
Including future members, the Big Ten and SEC claim 13 of the top 14 spots.
The average school ranking for each Power 5 conference, using future membership: SEC 25.1, Big Ten 25.8, ACC 39.6, Pac-12 41.4, Big 12 49.3.
Where does Pitt rank? Well according to this? 47. We were 33rd in football. But you would think this is a bullet moving up. We were 24th in academics which is solid. What kills us, 62nd in All Sports. Though this seems to be on the upswing. We were 52nd in Attendance (not good) and 36th in viewership (right in the middle). In what planet I don't know how Miami is ranked 24th in attendance.. WVU was ranked 28th in viewership, but I am taking this as they were bolsted by playing #1 OU and #7 Texas every year and overall probably where we are.
Anyways, here is the article.
If the college sports started over, who would be most coveted? We break it down with a formula.
www.si.com