NEW YORK: The Dallas Cowboys top Forbes’ 24th Annual NFL Team Valuations, maintaining the title of most valuable team for the 15th consecutive year, worth $6.5 billion followed by the New England Patriots, worth $5 billion.
With lucrative new media deals and some fruitful investments, the NFL’s 32 teams are worth 14% more than last year on average soaring to $3.48 billion, as the league shrugged off off the drag caused by a pandemic year.
Increase in team values is the result of the league’s new media deals and the success of its partnerships and investments in companies such as Fanatics, Genius Sports, DraftKings and Caesars Entertainment.
In March, the NFL signed $111.8 billion in media rights deals (including the ESPN payment for extending Monday Night Football a year through 2022 and money received from broadcasters for additional regular-season and playoff games); that represented an 82% average annual increase over the current deals. As a result, the national media rights payout to each of the league’s 32 teams is going to increase from $220 million this season to $377 million in 2032. And that’s not even counting the NFL Sunday Ticket deal with DirecTV, worth an average of $1.5 billion annually through 2022.
Then there’s the NFL’s venture capital arm, 32 Equity, which has also been scoring. Each NFL team kicked in $1 million to launch 32 Equity in 2013 and has since put in another $3 million or so. Profits from 32 Equity have been reinvested rather than distributed to the teams, but the portfolio has generated average annual returns in excess of 30% and is now worth well over $100 million per team, according to team executives who requested anonymity. Among 32 Equity’s investments: Fanatics (sports merchandise), Skillz (mobile gaming), Genius Sports (sports data and technology), Clear (biometric identity verification), Hyperice (athlete recovery devices), Sportradar (sports data and technology), On Location (luxury event hospitality) and Mythical Games (gaming technology studio).
“The NFL has the most valuable intellectual property of any sports league,” says Mike Ozanian, assistant managing editor at Forbes. “In the months ahead, the NFL will likely form a new corporation with media, sports betting and investment companies to further monetize their powerful brand and content.”
