How valuable are the Clemson Tigers compared to other programs?

The Clemson Tigers last won an NCAA championship in football in 2016, so it's been a while. They have experienced some ups and downs since, but generally speaking, they've been up for all of that time. They remain the ACC's top program and have very little competition for that moniker. 

What does that mean for the program as a whole? According to The Athletic's Matt Baker, it means that they'd be worth quite a bit in a hypothetical sale. In fact, they'd earn the 22nd-most money if they were sold like an NFL team, bringing in whoever sold them a cool $665 million. 

This is purely hypothetical. While NIL and the transfer portal have made college sports more closely resemble pro sports, this is still a change that won't happen since the programs are not teams more so than they are arms of a college. That fact means there won't be owners and there won't be sales, even if it's fun to consider. 

"The Tigers were one of the trickiest to place. They, like Florida State, are positioned to capitalize with the ACC’s new payout structure and have a viable escape hatch to the SEC or Big Ten if/when the next realignment wave hits around 2030," Baker began. "Two national championships in the past decade plus a likely preseason top-five roster are also great selling points."

Since the Tigers only averaged 8.2 wins between its 1981 championship run and the Dabo Swinney-led 2016 title, the Tigers feel "a little shakier" historically, especially "without a gargantuan student body or nearby population to fall back on" should the program start trending more towards their historical status rather than their recent one.