The machine just keeps on rolling. It was only July of this year when Forbes released it’s findings on the highest-valued teams in all of sports. Sitting at the top, of course, were Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys. Dallas was the only NFL franchise in the Top 4, where every entity was worth at least $4 billion.
Now, they’ve created a class of their own. Just two months later, the Cowboys have become the first professional sports franchise worth $5 billion, according to the latest update by Forbes.
More importantly, the gap between Dallas and the rest of the league is spreading. In July, the Patriots were also the second-highest valued NFL franchise, ranking sixth in all of sports at $3.7 billion. They only moved up $100 million in the last two months, while Dallas doubled that, increasing by $200 million.
The NFL, according to Forbes, is seeing their franchise values plateau thanks to how difficult they make it to qualify to own a team.
The NFL has the strictest ownership requirements among the four major U.S. leagues. In a team sale, the general partner must own at least 30%, and the maximum amount of debt at the team level is $350 million. If a team is sold for $2.3 billion, for example, the minimum equity by the GP would be $585 million, assuming the maximum amount of debt has been secured for the team by the GP.
In other words, it takes much more than being a member of the Forbes 400, where many fortunes have been made via real estate or privately run companies. It takes liquid wealth.
That isn’t a problem for Jones, who has been entrenched as the owner of the Cowboys since purchasing them in 1989 for a then-record $140 million. That’s not too shabby of a return for 20 years.
With the NFL having an opt-out clause in 2019 for the Sunday Ticket package, there could be even more money to be divvied up among the 32 owners. For fans, that could mean Sunday Ticket being part of a streaming service such as Amazon Prime, Netflix or other entity, which could greatly decrease the astronomical price for the package, and also has the chance to introduce team-specific packages such as what MLB does with their product.
That, combined with gambling being legalized in multiple states across the country, should only add to the intrigue. Jones spoke to that possibility with Forbes.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones recently said, “Legalized gambling is going to increase the amount of time people spend watching the NFL on television and online, and therefore it is going to have a very positive impact on the value or our content.”
Regardless, if there’s an opportunity to make money, nobody is better prepared to reap the benefits than Jones and the Cowboys. They continue to print money despite not winning multiple playoff games in a year since the 1990s.
The New York Giants (No. 3 – $3.2 billion), Washington Redskins (No. 5 – $3.1 billion) and Philadelphia Eagles (No. 10 – $2.75 billion), is the only division in football with three — much less all four — teams in the top 10.