The Pryor Dividend

Was Terrelle Pryor worth $2 million to the Buckeyes this year? Maybe more.

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Show my conference the money!

Down 17-13 in the 4th quarter of an October 4th game at Wisconsin, Ohio State's BCS chances were at a precipice. A second loss with resurgent Penn State still ahead on the schedule could have sent the Buckeyes into a tailspin. But with 6:31 left in the game, Ohio State took over at their own 20-yard line and Terrelle Pryor worked his magic. After completing three passes for 59 yards on the drive, on 2nd and 8, deep in Badger territory, Pryor took the snap, raced past the Badger linebackers into the end zone and into the national limelight.

What's Pryor worth to Ohio State University? On that night, we'd guess about $2 million. Pryor's heroics turned what could have been a 9-3 regular season and a possible landing place such as the Capital One Bowl into a 10-2 season with a trip to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl will pay Ohio State (after revenue sharing with other Big Ten schools) about $3 million; the Capital One Bowl would have paid Ohio State about $1 million.

That's one way to find a Pryor Dividend. Or at least the start of it.

It is what Prof. Richard M. Southall, director of the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, calls "the commercialized logic of college sport." The university gets their cut and "Pryor is the only one who doesn't profit from it," he says.

But what if the free market, not a charming recruiting pitch, determined where a high school All-American attended school? How much money would Pryor demand?

Let's at least take a shot.

Football is a team sport, of course. How could The Pryor Dividend be credited only to Pryor? The math is a little loose, but it's plausible. To answer the question, we'll equate Pryor's value to Ohio State to another first-year quarterback wearing the No. 2: the Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan.

Since taking over as starting quarterback, Pryor accounted for 51 percent of Ohio State's total offense. Ryan accounted for 60 percent of the Falcons' total yardage this season. Both were named their league's top first-year player (Pryor the Big Ten Freshman of the Year; Ryan the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year).

The Falcons' total payroll (players only, including bonuses) in 2008 is $115 million, in line with the league salary cap. Ryan, in his first year of a six-year, $42 million contract, took in $6.6 million. So about 5.7 percent of the currecnt cap is earmarked for Ryan. The cap reflects a percentage of team revenues.

What's Pryor worth to Ohio State University? On that night, we'd guess about about $2 million.

Using that same model, what is Pryor's total worth to Ohio State?

According to federal filings, from 2003-2006 (the most recent years available), Ohio State's football program generated an average of $54.5 million a year. From that, we could derive that Ohio State's fictitious salary cap would be somewhere around $35,425,000. Supposing that Pryor's market value to Ohio State University equals that of Ryan's to the Falcons, the Buckeyes' starting quarterback is owed $2,019,225 for his services. (And that's before he got a sniff at the millions that can be made from jersey sales, etc.)

When it comes to landing a spot in the Bowl Championship Series, The Pryor Dividend can also pay for other schools. Had Wisconsin stopped Pryor's late drive in Madison, they would have cost their own university about a million dollars, assuming that Ohio State's Fiesta Bowl berth could have then gone to Boise State University or another school. That's because BCS games pay out to the conference, not just the entry. In fact, had The Pryor Dividend money been invested entirely on scholarships, Pryor would have granted 30 in-state University of Wisconsin-Madison students a full scholarship, just by scoring on his 11-yard touchdown run. At least hypothetically.

We doubt they will, but maybe the next time the Badgers want to spoil their rival's BCS dreams, they should think about whose interests they're spoiling.

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