The Dallas Cowboys lead a top 20 team that has collectively racked up $3.9 billion in operating profits, but the NBA’s new media deals could soon shift the balance of power.
By Brett Knight And Justin TeitelbaumForbes team
NFL teams don’t have to work very hard to cover their expenses these days, with each raising about $323 million from national media and league sponsorship deals during the 2023 season before selling a single ticket. But the Dallas Cowboys aren’t thinking about breaking even: they’re breaking the bank.
THE the most valuable sports team in the worldworth $10.1 billion, is also the most profitable in the world, with Jerry Jones’ “Boys” having generated an estimated operating profit of $564 million in 2023. The second most profitable team, the Los Angeles Rams, barely reached half that figure, at $286 million, while the New England Patriots landed in third place with $261 million.
In total, the 20 most profitable sports teams include nine franchises from the NFL, five from the NBA, three from the NHL and three from the English Premier League. Together, they generated an estimated profit of $3.9 billion in the most recent season according to available data, an average of $195 million per team, up 12% from the top 20. of the previous year.
The Cowboys stand out thanks to their nearly $800 million in local revenue, derived from ticket sales, concessions, merchandise and other club-specific streams. No other professional football team has exceeded $400 million.
But Dallas offers a more replicable model in other ways, starting with the fact that it comes from the NFL, where teams averaged $143 million in operating profit in 2023 and no franchise had less than $56 million, according to Forbes estimates. Playing in a large market also gives the U.S. team a financial advantage, and control of its stadium allows it to extract maximum value from revenue sources including sponsorships and luxury suitesas well as concerts and other non-sporting events organized on site.
It also doesn’t hurt that the NFL, like the NBA and NHL, controls its spending through a salary cap system and a collectively negotiated division of league-wide revenue between players and owners. of teams. In European football leagues, by comparison, UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations keep wage bills in line with club revenues, but there are otherwise no limits on transfer fees or salaries – a major reason why powerhouses like Barcelona (which posted an operating loss of $145 million during the 2022-23 season) and Paris Saint-Germain (operating loss of 126 million dollars) does not come close to the list of the most profitable sports teams in the world.
Similarly, MLB has a “competitive balance tax” to discourage excessive spending by players, but without a firm cap. This system makes the New York Mets the least profitable sports team in the world, with an estimated operating loss of $292 million in 2023 after the club paid a declared $101 million in luxury taxes in addition to a payroll of $375 million.
However, the Mets are just as much of an outlier as the Cowboys. Among the 174 sports teams Forbes assessed in 2024, 141 were profitable and five others were break-even. And of the 28 teams that were in the red, 15 came from the still relatively nascent Major League Soccer.
The days when team ownership was just a matter of ego or a bet that the capital gains from an eventual sale would offset the losses incurred along the way are long gone. Now, profitability is the expectation, which is part of why private equity firms and other institutional investors are suddenly so eager to get into sports teams.
The NFL, of course, is a tempting target, ever since the league began allowing private equity firms to acquire minority stakes in a team in August. But the NBA, which selected its first private equity partner in 2020 and has looser rules for institutional investors than the NFL, could soon shake up the most profitable list. The league’s new national media deals, which take effect next season, are worth more than double what they are now, sending a money-making machine into overdrive.
Here are the 20 most profitable sports teams in the world, ranked by estimated operating profit (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in the most recent season with available data.
#1. $564 million
League: NFL | Value: $10.1 billion | Owner: Jerry Jones
Michael Owens/Getty Images
#2. $286 million
League: NFL | Value: $7.6 billion | Owner: E. Stanley Kroenke
Ryan Kang/Getty Images
#3. $261 million
League: NFL | Value: $7.4 billion | Owner: Robert Kraft
Al Bello/Getty Images
#4. $213 million
League: NHL | Value: $2.65 billion | Owner: Daryl Katz
#5. $199 million
League: NBA | Value: $7.1 billion | Owner: Jerry Buss Family Trusts, Marc Walter, Todd Boehly
#6. $190 million
League: NFL | Value: $7.3 billion | Owner: Jean Mara, Steven Tisch
#7. $187 million
League: Premier League | Value: $6.55 billion | Owner: Family of glaziers, James Ratcliffe
Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images
#8. $182 million
League: NBA | Value: $7.5 billion | Owner: Madison Square Garden Sports
#9. $164 million
League: NFL | Value: $6.1 billion | Owner: Cal McNair
#10. $161 million
League: Premier League | Value: $3.2 billion | Owner: Joseph Lewis Family TrustDaniel Levy
Marc Atkins/Getty Images
#11 (tie). $160 million
League: NBA | Value: $4.9 billion | Owner: Tilman Fertitta
#11 (tie). $160 million
League: NFL | Value: $6.3 billion | Owner: Josh Harris
#13 (tie). $158 million
League: NBA | Value: $4.7 billion | Owner: Adelson family, Marc Cuban
David Jensen/Getty Images
#13 (tie). $158 million
League: NFL | Value: $6.6 billion | Owner: Jeffrey Lurie
#15. $148 million
League: Premier League | Value: $5.1 billion | Owner: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan
#16. $146 million
League: NFL | Value: $4.8 billion | Owner: James Irsay
#17. $144 million
League: NFL | Value: $6.8 billion | Owner: York family
#18. $143 million
League: NHL | Value: $2.9 billion | Owner: Philippe Anschutz
Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
#19 (tie). $142 million
League: NBA | Value: $8.8 billion | Owner: Joe LacobPeter Guber
#19 (tie). $142 million
League: NHL | Value: 3 billion dollars | Owner: Molson family
METHODOLOGY
The 20 most profitable sports teams are selected Forbes’ 2024 MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL And world football team valuations, just like the figures in the graph entitled “The Green Zone”. (The global soccer roster included 30 teams across six leagues: 12 from the English Premier League, nine from the United States MLS, three from the Spanish La Liga, three from the Italian Serie A, two from the German Bundesliga and one of the French Ligue 1.)
The most profitable ranking reflects Forbes’ operating profit (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) estimates for the most recent season with available data (2023 for MLB, MLS and NFL; 2023-24 for NBA and NHL; and 2022 -23 for European football). Profit figures are in US dollars and are rounded to the nearest million dollars.
The team values shown are enterprise values (equity plus net debt) and reflect the economic situation of each team’s stadium (including revenue from concerts and other non-sporting events that accrues to the team owner), but they do not include the value of the stadium. real estate. Likewise, the values reflect the rights of regional sports networks owned by the team but do not include the value of the RSNs themselves. Interests in other sports-related assets and mixed-use real estate projects are also excluded.
Sources for Forbes’ estimates included team executives, sports bankers and league consultants; public documents such as stadium leases and credit rating reports; and executives in the sponsorship and broadcasting industry.