College Wednesday: The Top Money Making Teams in College Hoops

So this Wednesday I'm going to take a stab at a regular feature of this blog - a focus on college hoops. It's definitely my biggest passion area, and today's my birthday (shameless birthday plug), so I figured what better day to start, right?

Sports Business Journal published a list of the top 10 basketball revenue producers in the NCAA, for the 2007-08 season. It's a pretty interesting list:

1. Louisville $23.5M
2. North Carolina $17.8M
3. Indiana $17.0M
4. Arizona $16.4M
5. Arkansas $16.1M
6. Syracuse $16.0M
7. Duke $15.9M
8. Michigan State $15.8M
9. Wisconsin $15.0M
10. Kentucky $14.9M

As I looked at this list, I had a lot of questions. First and foremost, what is the impact that top coaches can have on this dynamic? Will Coach Calipari take Kentucky's profile and move them quickly up this list?

To think about where this might go, I wanted to take that top 10 list and rank them in terms of followers on their Twitter feeds (and provide links here, in case you want to add to their numbers!) The results are interesting.

1. John Calipari, Kentucky 532,216
2. Tom Crean, Indiana 10,307
3. Duke Basketball + Coach Wojo (no Coach K yet) 5,010
4. Rick Pitino, Louisville 3,461
5. Roy Williams, North Carolina 3,165
6. Tom Izzo, Michigan State (MSU hoops) 282
   
7. Sean Miller, Arizona 237
8. Bo Ryan, Wisconsin (Wisconsin hoops) 114
9. Jim Boeheim, Syracuse 15
10. Mike Pelphrey, Arkansas n/a

Pretty interesting, huh? If you take Twitter for what it is - a way to keep in touch with your fan base and sponsor base on a day by day (or multiple times a day by day) basis, it will be very interesting to see how this impacts money. If you feel more connected to a coach or program, you are more likely to talk, write, or blog about them. You also might be more likely to buy a t-shirt or donate. Since the last top 10 was pre-the emergence of Twitter, I'm very interested to see how this shapes up.

And, perhaps more critically, how could this trend impact the schools that aren't in the top 10 revenue drivers? I'm looking for Drake to lead this. Come on Coach Phelps! (Our assistant, Justin Ohl, is in the mix but has a ways to go at 114 followers...)