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Forbes' list of Top Colleges for 2017 For the second straight year The University of North Texas ranks 500th out of the top 650. Other notables include: UTEP: 608 UTSA: 639 Liberty: 610 SMU: 98 The full list can be found here: https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/#6d6ceb141987

NBC’s proposed deal is a decrease from the $33 million or so ESPN currently pays for the conference’s first-tier TV rights, and it’s also a staggering slide from the $150 million-per-year offer made by ESPN in 2011. The Big East’s current financial embarrassment comes courtesy of the conference leaders, including then-commissioner John Marinatto, who turned down that whopping nine-year, $1.4 billion ESPN offer. Marinatto and other administrators felt going to the open market would net the Big East a better deal by forcing networks to bid against each other. The gamble backfired when ESPN yanked its offer off the table and no other networks came running for the conference’s TV rights. Without a new arrangement in place, the Big East provided little income security to its member schools, which immediately became prime targets for poaching by other conferences. The ACC, as a result, will soon be the new home of four former Big East schools; the Big Ten and Big 12 each netted one. Not only has the Big East lost the vast majority of its competitive teams in both football and basketball, but the conference will also give up its automatic qualification to a BCS bowl once college football’s new playoff system is implemented in 2014. That means it will soon be much more difficult for the Big East to build upon its television revenue with wealthy bowl game payouts and revenue earned through the NCAA basketball tournament (the Big East has traditionally been the top earner from tournament play). Assuming the Big East takes the deals offered by CBS and NBC – and really, what other choice is there? – the conference is looking at around $30 million or so in annual TV revenue. That’s not too much better than small fish like Conference USA ($16 million/year) or the Mountain West ($8 million/year), and those two conferences have previously discussed a merger that would rapidly close the gap. The struggling conference appears to be accepting its new middle-class status with grace, and there are some silver linings to be had – commissioner Mike Aresco is seeking to maximize the conference’s exposure, so a deal that offers access to both NBC and the NBC Sports Network may actually be preferable to one with ESPN. But for a conference that was recently the nation’s premier basketball power, fighting to simply stay relevant is a long way to fall. Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/02/21/what-the-big-easts-new-tv-deals-mean-for-the-conferences-future/

read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2012/05/21/7-reasons-why-facebook-ipo-was-a-bust/