College football’s 25 biggest brands entering the 2024 season was a watercooler conversation that went nuclear inside our offices this week with a few unanimous choices and very little agreement on others. A winning tradition trumps most of the other cards played in the brand argument, with recognition and publicity also high in the hierarchy of deliberation.
The parameters for inclusion are subjective. If you were rattling off college football programs to someone who’s never watched the sport, who are the first to come to mind? Focusing on Power Four conference schools, only the first handful are easily identifiable. But then the debate begins, once you get into the weeds of sorting through those outside of the top to middle tier.
Official Visit last summer surveyed 1,000 high school football players on brand strength and asked athletes to rank college football programs. They included a rolling four-year average in their data findings and the results are telling. We’ve included those rankings here as a guide, but ours looks very different after polling several of our analysts.
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Here’s a look at college football’s 25 biggest brands and our explanation for each: