As we head into the Labor Day weekend of 2013, my
suspicion is that more of you are excited about this Saturday’s first games of
the season than who is going to run for governor or any other state office.
College football is king in Alabama. Make no mistake
about it. We love college football. However, it appears the rest of the country
is enamored as well. In a recent Forbes magazine article the vaunted financial
periodical says, “The players might be amateurs but college football itself
hauls in billions of dollars a year in television contracts, ticket sales,
sponsorships and paraphernalia.”
Not surprisingly, Forbes discovered that the South
and more specifically the Southeastern Conference is not only the most dominant
on the field, it is by far the richest. Forbes’ study revealed that seven of
the ten most lucrative college football franchises are in the SEC.
The report lists these SEC schools and their team
values as they would appear if they were in the NFL. At number four was LSU
with a team value of $102 million. Georgia was number five at $99 million.
Alabama was number six at $96 million. Florida came in seventh at $93 million.
Auburn was ninth at $85 million and Arkansas was tenth at $83 million.
Therefore, the SEC holds places four through ten in the Forbes rankings of
richest franchises. Seven out of ten is not bad.
Texas was number one. Michigan was number two, and
Notre Dame was third.
For the most part there is a correlation to how well
a team does on the field and their dollar value at the bank. That is not
precise though. For example, in the last six years Alabama has emerged as the
premier college football program in America, while Texas has suffered through
some lackluster seasons. A lot of Texas’ financial success stems from its
unique, exclusive television arrangement. Notre Dame also has a novel national
television contract and following.
However, the SEC recently entered into a lucrative
extensive television contract that will air our dominant teams nationwide and
insure that our top teams remain in the top ten financially for years to come.
By the way, according to Forbes the average salary
of the ten highest paid football coaches in the country is $4.2 million. Nine
of the ten are state employees. Alabama’s Nick Saban remains number one and
deservingly so.
Labor Day generally marks the end of the summer
vacation season with many of you slipping in a final trek to the beach. For
those of you who like to frequent our own Alabama gulf coast, you will have a new
luxury resort hotel to accommodate you soon and it will be owned partially by
the state. Gov. Bentley made a convention center hotel on our own Alabama coast
a lynchpin of his accomplishments during his first term in office. He
repeatedly said, I am tired of going to conferences of Alabama associations
that are being held at Sandestin on Florida’s gulf coast.
Bentley spearheaded the efforts to make our own Gulf
State Park a luxury convention destination. Legislation was passed in this
year’s regular session to make it a reality. Six governors prior to Bentley
have floated the idea. The legislation allows the state to partner with a
private developer to build a hotel and conference center at our Gulf State
Park. The hotel will actually be built on the stretch of beach where the old
Gulf State Park was located prior to it being decimated by Hurricane Ivan in
2004.
The state will use $80 million it received from the
2010 BP gulf oil spill to pay for the project. Therefore, the state will own
the land and facility.
You could see Bentley’s pride when he signed the
bill creating the new luxury state owned hotel. He had the bill signing on the
site of the new venture. It was a beautiful clear May day on the Gulf of Mexico
with blue skies and seagulls surrounding the governor and Gulf Coast
dignitaries. Bentley beamed as he set the project in motion.
It should be a crown jewel for our gulf coast that
generations to come can enjoy and from which the state will reap the profits.
See you next week.
About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading
political columnist. His column appears weekly in more than 70 Alabama
newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached
at http://www.steveflowers.us.
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