The 2024-25 College Football Playoff field features combinations with some numerical differences, such as Notre Dame’s 14,000 student enrollment versus Indiana’s 48,000, visiting SMU’s stadium capacity of 32,000 compared to host Penn State’s 107,000 arena, and the University of Texas’ endowment ($20 billion) compared to Clemson ($1 billion).
But there is some similarity among all the dozens of playoff teams: They all have at least one very wealthy financier. And in the NIL and transfer portal era — where programs like the Hoosiers can go from cellar dwellers to title hunters in a single offseason — those backers are arguably more important than ever.
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Sportico took a look at some of the wealthiest, most prominent boosters of the athletic departments of the schools playing for the national football title over the next four weeks, using publicly available news and school reports. Is it scientific? Not at all. But when has college sports been rational?
Southern Methodist University. –Gerald J. Ford ($2.7 billion net worth. All net worth estimates are from Forbes)
The financial services magnate (not the ex-president) made a name for himself by turning around ailing banks, reviving Golden State Bancorp with Ronald Perelman (the investor, not the actor). The pair sold the bank to Citigroup for $6 billion in shares in 2002. Before and since, Ford was a loyal supporter of the Mustangs, who named their Dallas stadium after the billionaire. He now heads Hilltop Holdings, a financial services conglomerate with a market capitalization of $1.9 billion.
Ohio State University. – Les Wexner ($7.9 billion)
The Dayton, Ohio-born retailer is best known for bringing Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works to malls near you. His wife, a longtime OSU supporter and trustee of the medical school, made a surprise gift in 2007 to name the Buckeyes football complex after Les. It is one of the few facilities in the state of Ohio with Wexner’s name on it, although his long friendship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has colored the honor for some in the Columbus community.
Indiana University Bloomington – Mark Cuban ($5.9 billion)
A sports fanatic, Cuban made his fortune by co-founding Broadcast.com with fellow IU alum Todd Wagner in the 1990s and offering the then-novel idea of streaming sports games over the Internet. After sales to Yahoo at the height of the dot-com bubble, Cuban used some of his billions to buy the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. He has given the Hoosiers’ athletic department several forms of support, including millions to build a student-run broadcast facility in 2015 and, more recently, NIL deals through Campus Ink, an apparel startup in which he has invested.
University of Texas at Austin – Robert Rowling ($10.9 billion)
Rowling first made his fortune with his father as an oil wildcatter, then expanded into the hospitality industry – his TRT Holdings long owned the luxury chain Omni Hotels, where the family man banned pay-per-view offers for adults . COVID led him to shake up his holdings a bit: He sold pandemic loser Gold’s Gym, while investing $500 million in pandemic-boosted golf courses. Rowling, who regularly donates to Austin schools and athletics, was notified two years ago that he was lending his support to other sports donors who wanted to keep their sports alive The eyes of Texas as the fight song at school when the students wanted to drop it, given the song’s previous use in blackface performances. The CFP has a potential root conflict for Rowling: While he earned his bachelor’s degree in Texas, he has a law degree from SMU.
University of Tennessee – Jimmy Haslam ($8.5 billion)
Haslam, owner of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and MLS’s Columbus Crew, has a long association with the Volunteers. Jimmy was captain of the 1952 team that went to the Cotton Bowl and for whom the practice football field in Knoxville is named. He and his wife Dee have donated more than $120 million to the university, millions of which went to the athletics, music school and business school that now bears their name. Haslam’s support of the Vols wasn’t without its bumps: The highly influential Haslam wanted Greg Schiano as football coach in 2017, a deal the school backed out of after an uproar over Schiano coaching at Penn State during the time Jerry Sandusky was having sexual boys there abuse.
University of Notre Dame – Jay Jordan (net worth not estimated)
Although his wealth is not estimated at ForbesJordan is a member of the Giving Pledge, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ club of billionaires who pledge to give away at least half of their wealth, during life or death. He founded and still owns most of TJC, a private equity firm with $30 billion in assets under management, including a stake in Bruin Capital. He is Notre Dame’s largest donor ever, with more than $150 million in lifetime donations, including to athletics. One son played for the Irish football team at the beginning of this century.
Penn State–Terry Pegula ($7.6 billion)
The 1973 PSU graduate made his fortune fracking natural gas in Pennsylvania. When he sold the company for $4.7 billion in 2010, he bought the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. While Pegula and his wife Kim are best known in Happy Valley for an $88 million gift to push the Nittany Lions hockey program to the top of the collegiate league, a Penn State blog called Pegula “the man who made Penn football State bailed out” for writing a check in 2012 to increase then-coach Bill O’Brien’s pay to prevent him from accepting an NFL coaching offer. O’Brien is credited with maintaining the viability of Nittany Lions football in the wake of the Sandusky scandal, although he left a year later to become head coach for the NFL’s Texans.
University of Oregon – Phil Knight ($35.1 billion)
If there’s an athletic department booster that AD dreams of, it’s the founder of Nike. Knight started the company in Oregon, where he was a track runner, and has given hundreds of millions of dollars to the school, turning the Ducks into a football powerhouse. “Uncle Phil,” as he is known to the players, has reportedly committed “unlimited” NIL money this year to help the Ducks win the program’s first national championship. Knight’s football title dreams are undefeated and ranked No. 1 with a bye due to this weekend’s issues. They are the closest to reality they have ever been.
Arizona State University – Ira Fulton (net worth not estimated)
He is the founder and owner of Fulton Homes, a housing developer that builds approximately 1,000 homes per year. Not listed as a billionaire, but his donations suggest he is one: By 2005, he had already given away about $265 million to charity and was worth $425 million at the time, according to press releases published on the homebuilder’s website. ASU has received more than $160 million in donations from Fulton, whose engineering school in Tempe is named in his honor. His publicized support is only focused on academics, not athletics, but without the school there would be no Sun Devils football, right? Fulton has also donated more than $70 million to BYU.
Clemson University – Dan Cathy ($10.8 billion)
Cathy, a scion of the Chick-fil-A empire, did not attend Clemson, but at least one child did (the eldest Cathy graduated from Georgia Southern). Yet the fast-food chain’s chairman is one of 27 “Athletic Cornerstone Partners” who have contributed at least $2.5 million to Clemson’s athletic department. Jim Brown, owner of tax consulting firm Synergi in South Carolina, appears to be the biggest athletics booster for the Tigers, but it’s Cathy who students will know best: Chick-fil-A has three locations in Clemson, including in the student center.
University of Georgia – Don Leebern Jr. (net worth not estimated)
Long seen as one of the nation’s most powerful athletic boosters, Leeburn died this spring. Still, the late owner of a major liquor, wine and beer distributor has left his mark on the Bulldogs. First, he was a starting lineman on the 1959 team that won the SEC and that postseason’s Orange Bowl; He subsequently served for a long time on the board of regents of the university system. Leebern gave millions of dollars to athletics, including money for football facilities and providing scholarships for gymnastics and football.
Boise State University – Allen and Billie Dee Noble (net worth not estimated)
The Broncos’ biggest boosters are doing this from beyond the grave. The estate of Allen and Billie Dee Noble gave the school $25 million in October, saying it will use the money to support the athletic department. In true Idaho fashion, Allen Noble, who died in 2021, made his wealth from potatoes, selling mostly farm equipment but also starting two still-operating potato farms. Noble supported Boise State football long before the installation of bluegrass, going back to the days when college coaching legend Lyle Smith founded what was then Boise Junior College as a football powerhouse in the 1950s and 1960s.
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