# Does college football generate as much rev as pro football? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 3, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800 "2012-11-03T21:47:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/1 "2012-11-03T21:47:32Z")
Please forgive a stupid question. Does college football make as much money as NFL? Sorry for quick dumb question, posting from phone, mid argument with an asshole need answer fast. I said no way, he says yes. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/2 "2012-11-03T21:53:34Z")
He’s wrong, and it’s not even close. This is a hard question to answer because gathering all college football revenue together in a single number is not easily done. However, most sources put the number at between $3 and $4 billion, when you peice it all together. IT’s very top loaded; the top 15 teams make about a billion among themselves, and then the next 50 make another billion, and everyone else might make a billion, maybe a bit more. The NFL’s annual revenue is about $9 billion (based on last year) so even a generous college estimate isn’t close to that. The NFL’s TV contract alone is probably worth as much or more than all college football revenue combined. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/3 "2012-11-03T21:57:00Z")
Thanks. “He’s wrong” is like fucking crack cocain for my ears. Ughhh, you have no idea with this know it all asshole. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/4 "2012-11-04T00:15:29Z")
I too am mid-argument and I need further data…also I’m not an asshole 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/5 "2012-11-04T07:07:07Z")
But colleges sometimes claim that their college football teams bring in a lot of alumni donations. But there isn’t really much hard data to confirm or deny that assertion. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/6 "2012-11-04T13:45:12Z")
A lot of college programs operate at a loss. The athletic dept. is like the marketing dept. of a corporation. Does the marketing dept. make money? No, they spend money. Do they generate money for the company? If they are good, then yes. So making comparisons between college and pro football is not easy because they are operating on two totally different business models. Apples and oranges. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/7 "2012-11-04T18:31:12Z")
Moved to the Game Room. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-college-football-generate-as-much-rev-as-pro-football/639800/8 "2012-11-05T01:03:47Z")
You can find details of every school’s athletic budget at this website: [http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/](http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/) As someone said upthread, very few schools make significant money from athletics.