UCLA: Champions are made here

Forbes put out a Business of College Football feature this week. Although UCLA didn't appear on any of the money charts, the Bruins ranked highly on the list of Champion Factories.

A slight misnomer, the ranking is still pretty interesting. They tallied the number of current pro athletes in the five major leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, MLS, NHL). Michigan led the way with 68 alumni on current pro rosters, followed by Ohio State with 62 and Miami with 60. UCLA was ranked fourth, with 59 Bruins on professional rosters. Forbes noted that the Bruins "scored well in four of our five sports categories" but "are laggards in ice hockey."

There's a big drop-off after that, with a two-way tie for between Notre Dame and Florida State for fifth (51 pro athletes each).

In basketball, UCLA's 10 current NBA players ties with two other schools for the fourth highest total in the nation.

Notre Dame topped the list of most valuable football programs. The Fighting Irish are worth $101 million and pulled in a profit of $45.8 million last year. They gave $21.1 million of that to the university's academic program.

Earlier in the year, Forbes ranked the most valuable college basketball programs. The Bruins came in 13th, worth $13.6 million and turning a profit of $7 million.

In other publishing news, U.S. News and World Reports will hand out its popular college rankings in just a few days.

Comments

[localbruin]

I have a question not a comment, and it's off topic too. How am I doing so far? Anyway, given that Cameroon didn't get to the Olympics, has there been any word on the whereabouts and future intentions of ALFRED ABOYA? Thanks for clueing me in to anything that flitter in on AA.

[Adam Rose]

Aboya is back in town but hasn't made any public comments yet. I'm hoping to reach him soon.

I do know that Cameroon apparently had a very bad experience -- not just on the court. Their national committee reportedly failed to give them a lot of basic support. More on that later.

As for his future intentions, he is expected to be back on the team this season and will be enrolling in graduate school.

[Norcal Bruin]

I wonder why they didn't count foreign-based players in those sports? Off the top of my head, Tyus Edney was playing in Italy last I checked, not to mention several soccer-playing Bruins who are pulling down European paychecks that are probably bigger than what they could get playing here.

[BruinBeez]

I believe Bruins have 13 NBA players, not 10 - maybe they aren't counting this rookies?

[localbruin]

Thanks for the update! I look forward to hearing your news on AA and on what happened to the Cameroon team.