Baseball really is America’s sport! It’s not one of my favorites (football and basketball first), but this definitely shows that baseball is making MADD money!!! Yesterday Forbes released the values of Major League Baseball teams. One team even surpassing the Dallas Cowboys’ $2.1 billion for the title of most valuable franchise in North America! Check out the stats after the jump…
Via Darren Rovell | ESPN.com:
Major League Baseball teams can bask in the glow of the biggest year-over-year change in valuation ever calculated by Forbes magazine as they enter a new season, but it’s not the popularity of the game or their ballparks the owners have to thank for the surge.
According to figures released by the publication Wednesday, the league’s off-the-field investments have helped boost the average worth of the 30 teams by 23 percent to $744 million.
In its report, Forbes, which has been tracking the league’s finances since 1998, revealed that the money that all teams made from the $450 million sale of the Montreal Expos in 2006 was invested in hedge funds that are now worth more than $1 billion.
“The value of a team used to be about a team itself,” Forbes executive editor Michael Ozanian said in a phone interview with ESPN.com. “Then it shifted to the stadium value and then to the television deals, and now it’s more about what’s not on the field at all.”
Each team also owns an equal share in MLB Advanced Media, which, among other things, has generated massive revenue from its game-day video and audio app MLB At Bat, the highest grossing sports app in the Apple store on the iPhone and iPad for four consecutive years.
MLB Advanced Media generates more than $600 million in revenue, and Forbes conservatively values the subsidiary at $6 billion.
Combine those investments with the $12.4 billion in national television revenue the clubs will receive thanks to new deals with Fox, Turner and ESPN that run through the 2021 season, and it’s easy to see why it’s a great time to be a Major League Baseball owner.
The New York Yankees are the most valuable team for the 16th straight year. Forbes tabs the team’s value at $2.3 billion, surpassing the Dallas Cowboys’ $2.1 billion for the title of most valuable franchise in North America. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in the No. 2 MLB spot at $1.5 billion.
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