Because those revenue rankings looked odd to me, I briefly looked into that study. The numbers are based on what the institutions reported to the DOE for the Equity in Athletics disclosure requirements--which is related to Title IX.
So, I looked up UK's disclosure (linked below). All sports show exactly the same expenses as revenue (net zero). UK included the following caveat.
" In addition, the instructions for this report
require revenue to be re-allocated to ensure all sports are "fully funded." Please note that our athletics department will report
a small profit, but all sports do not have a net income of zero as this report shows. All our sports are truly fully funded, but not in the manner shown here (revenue in this fiscal year came mostly from non-sports specific, men’s basketball, and football). The NCAA report will show all sports with the actual revenue earned by sport."
So, I decided to go and look up UK's latest NCAA report (also linked below). UK reported $31.2M for Men's Basketball. Of that, only $4M was media rights. There was $57M in non sport specfic media rights, of which basketball is the second biggest portion. So, we know for certain that this ranking underestimated UK's men’s basketball revenue by at least $9M, and in reality much more.
In summary, that ranking of revenue is worthless because it uses the wrong data in the wrong way. In any case, attendance, TV ratings, and social media mentions would be a better measurement of brand power.
www.uky.edu