The media sometimes tries to assign a specific value to sports teams, and while it’s better than nothing, these efforts to estimate value are largely meaningless.
On Tuesday, Sportico.com made headlines when it announced that the Cowboys were the first NFL team to be valued at more than $10 billion.
Ultimately, any business is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that if the Cowboys were for sale, they could sell for well over $10 billion.
Of course, these aren’t for sale. Owner Jerry Jones has made that clear on multiple occasions. Assuming there’s enough money set aside to deal with any estate tax liabilities when the time comes, and assuming Jerry’s children don’t want to sell, any attempt to guesstimate their value from the outside is likely to be moot.
A few years ago, a source familiar with the operations of NFL franchises predicted that the average random team would soon be sold for between $8 billion and $10 billion. Two years ago, the Broncos set the record with a sale price of $4.65 billion. Last year, the Commanders beat that with a price of $6.05 billion.
If the Cowboys were to be sold, they could fetch double that amount — perhaps $15 billion.
Again, that’s irrelevant. The Cowboys are not for sale. And any effort to apply hypothetical numbers to a team that’s not for sale is irrelevant. If the team were to be for sale, they would continue to sell higher and higher. And higher and higher and higher.
That’s the key word. More. Tell yourself that whenever publications like Forbes or Sportico try to put a monetary value on NFL teams.
more.
