The Cincinnati Bengals have been parked at No. 32 for seven straight years in Sportico’s annual NFL team valuations. The small-market club plays in an older stadium, ranks near the bottom on local revenue and lacks a national brand from its Super Bowl trophy-less history.
Yet there are only six sports franchises on the planet outside the NFL that are worth more than the Bengals. The list includes three from the NBA, two in MLB and LaLiga’s Real Madrid. The NFL’s least valuable team is worth $7.4 billion, by Sportico’s count, and all 32 teams land among the world’s 40 most valuable sports franchises.
The NFL flexed its financial might over the past 12 months with a record-breaking control sale price in Seattle and sky-high valuations of limited partnership stakes in Cleveland, Las Vegas and Miami.
The average team value rose 31% to $9.34 billion, based on conversations with more than 40 people involved in the league, including team owners, executives, investors, consultants and bankers. It marks the biggest year-over-year value gain for the NFL since Sportico’s valuations launched in 2020. The average value has increased 141% over the past five years.
The Dallas Cowboys lead the way for the seventh straight year at $15.5 billion, up 21% from 2025. The Los Angeles Rams ($12.7 billion), New York Giants ($12 billion), New England Patriots ($10.4 billion) and New York Jets ($10.35 billion) round out the top five.
The 32 teams are collectively worth $299 billion, including real estate and related businesses, such as the Cowboys’ sports components of The Star mixed-use development in Frisco, Texas.
Sportico’s estimated enterprise values are for control-sale transactions where a new owner takes over. Click for a ranking of all 32 teams and methodology, and for our complete database comparing all sports franchises.
Team sales
Last month, tech billionaire Vinod Khosla and his family reached an agreement to buy the Seattle Seahawks for an enterprise value of $9.612 billion, with the $12 million top-off a likely nod to Seattle’s loud fanbase known as the 12s. The price was a tick lower than the $10 billion valuation for Mark Walter’s deal to take control of the Los Angeles Lakers last year.
The Seahawks are just the fourth NFL team sold since 2015, after the Washington Commanders (2023), Denver Broncos (2022) and Carolina Panthers (2018). Twelve NBA teams have changed hands during the same period. NFL owners will vote on the Seahawks deal at the end of August.
The Seahawks’ sale was inevitable after owner Paul Allen died in 2018—the Microsoft co-founder bought the team for roughly $200 million in 1997. No other teams are on the market, and barring an actuarial event or change of heart, few people expect any NFL owners to sell control of their franchise in the near term.
Scarcity is a major driver that pushes sports team values higher. The average NFL ownership tenure is 42 years—with a median of 32 years. And while the NBA, NHL and MLB are in various stages of expansion, the NFL has no plans to add a team.
“There are only 32 of them, and they’re not making any more,” Marc Ganis, a consultant to multiple NFL teams, said in a phone interview. “Yet, the number of people and families who have generated tremendous wealth to be able to buy a team keeps increasing.”
In May, the NFL approved Arctos Partners’ third investment in the league. The deal was for about 3% of the Cleveland Browns at a $9 billion valuation. It is the first tranche, with Arctos ultimately expected to buy 10% of the club, with the second and third payments at higher valuations. The funds will be used for the Browns’ new $2.6 billion stadium project.
Arctos is the only private equity firm to invest in multiple NFL teams since the league approved institutional ownership in 2024. Its other investments include a 10% stake in the Buffalo Bills and an 8% stake in the Los Angeles Chargers.
In October, NFL owners approved LP stake sales in the Giants, Patriots and San Francisco 49ers that valued the clubs at a combined $29 billion. The Miami Dolphins sold a 1% stake at a $12.5 billion valuation, which included the economics of F1’s Miami Grand Prix and tennis’ Miami Open. The Las Vegas Raiders have also sold multiple stakes this year at valuations of $10 billion and above.
The Seahawks deal reflects the expanding revenue multiples that investors are willing to pay for entry into the world’s richest sports league. David Tepper paid about six times revenue for the Panthers in 2018, while the Broncos fetched nine times four years later from the Walton and Penner families.
Josh Harris’ group raised the bar to 11 times for the Commanders in 2023. Khosla is paying 13.6 times Seattle’s 2025 revenue of just over $700 million, according to multiple people who viewed the sales deck from Allen & Company, which facilitated the sale for the Allen estate.
The average NFL revenue multiple is now 12.7, up more than two turns from 10.3 in 2025. It is a tick behind the WNBA (13.6) and NBA (13.5) ahead of their new TV deals kicking in.
League economics
The 32 NFL teams generated an estimated $23.5 billion last year, including profits at non-NFL events at stadiums where teams control or own the buildings. The figure was a 5.9% increase versus 2024. National revenue, largely driven by the NFL’s $125 billion in media deals, rose 5% to more than $450 million per club. The league check represented 62% of team revenues last year.
The Cowboys are in a league of their own with $1.3 billion in revenue—Real Madrid is the only sports franchise to post more. America’s Team owns the NFC’s longest active drought without a conference championship game appearance, but its local revenue is still nearly 70% higher than the Rams in second. Dallas’ estimated $510 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization is twice the Rams’ runner-up total and nearly 4x the league average EBITDA of $139 million. Real Madrid had $279 million in EBITDA before player trading.
The Cowboys are the only team that operates outside of the league’s shared merchandise system. It is a business that generates nearly $200 million in annual revenue. Dallas has re-upped several of its biggest sponsors over the past year, and the club’s $300 million in annual sponsorship revenue is nearly twice that of any other team.
Dallas is also among the top clubs for generating revenue outside of NFL events, alongside the Rams, Dolphins, Raiders and Atlanta Falcons. Top teams generate more than $100 million in gross revenue, and profits run into the tens of millions of dollars from concerts and other events, money that’s captured in Sportico‘s revenue reporting.
The Rams’ SoFi Stadium set a live concert record in 2025, boasting 33 non-NFL events including five nights of Beyonce, plus Kendrick Lamar, Shakira, The Weeknd and Chris Stapleton. Falcons executives say their kitchens at Mercedes-Benz Stadium were closed only eight days in 2025, thanks to the plethora of events, big and small. The Dolphins hosted a deep roster of concerts at Hard Rock Stadium, plus University of Miami football, which has a revenue-sharing deal with the NFL club and made the College Football Playoff National Championship at its home stadium in January.
Eleven NFL stadiums hosted World Cup games in the U.S. this summer. FIFA captured nearly all the economics from the games, although teams found ways to make some money via tickets, admissions fees, premium seating and other avenues.
The average NFL EBITDA dipped slightly last year to $139 million, fueled by cash payrolls rising faster than the salary cap. Buffalo, Green Bay and Minnesota all spent more than $325 million on their cash payroll, plus another $70 million-plus in player benefits. Player spending smooths out over time under the NFL’s cap system, but the one-year payroll jumps lead to smaller-than-normal profits for those teams.
The NFL has shared its concerns with teams about outsized cash-to-cap spending, according to multiple sources. The worry is that it creates a situation where a team is less competitive because it does not have the deep pockets to afford a big increase in cash payroll.
Teams vary on how they account for player costs on their income statements, using cash, cap or GAAP to capture the biggest team expense item. The Packers reported a small $1.1 million loss for the 2025 season, but that included non-cash charges tied to dead money via player transactions and depreciation and amortization. Sportico estimates the Packers made $69 million on a cash basis.
What’s next
NFL revenue is projected to increase mid-single digits in 2026. On the local side, it will get a boost from the Bills’ new $2.2 billion stadium that opened last weekend to lukewarm reviews. More new stadiums are coming online soon that will also drive local revenue in Tennessee (2027), Cleveland (2029), Washington, D.C. (2030) and Kansas City (2031).
The Commanders’ $3.8 billion stadium project will return Washington to the very top tier of the league’s financial table. The club was the last NFL team to rank ahead of the Cowboys for revenue and team value, before the franchise’s free-fall under former owner Dan Snyder.
The Jacksonville Jaguars and Panthers are also undergoing $1 billion-plus renovations to their stadiums, while Chicago and Denver are exploring new stadium options. The Panthers’ $1.3 billion renovation will include a 4,400-seat music venue outside of Bank of America Stadium.
Beyond new stadiums, the NFL’s march to $30 billion in revenue will be fueled by a couple of macro elements tied to media. Paramount Skydance’s 2025 acquisition of Paramount triggered a contractual change-of-control clause that gave the NFL an opportunity to redo its CBS deal, ahead of the league’s 2029 opt-outs in its media pacts. Discussions took place in the spring, but Paramount’s antitrust suit-related delay of its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery likely puts those talks on hold.
Fox has no plans to redo its NFL deal in the near term. “We’ve had recent, thorough and productive discussions with the league, and as a result we will not be making any amendments to our existing contractual relationship, which extends through the completion of the 2029 season,” Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said during the company’s earnings call this month.
The NFL is going to get its pound of flesh from broadcasters and streamers. Waiting until the official opt-out might be an advantage, as it should offer more clarity on adding an 18th game to the schedule if the league and union can agree on the change. Another regular-season contest should unlock an additional package of international games, with every team playing one game a year outside the U.S. The NFL will need to thread the needle on extracting as much cash as possible from its longtime broadcast partners, but not to the point that it financially cripples these legacy media brands.
The rising price of NFL franchises is pricing out many investors, as the league requires a lead owner to buy 30% of a team and allows for only $1.5 billion in debt during a sale. League rules also do not allow ownership by sovereign wealth funds, corporations, or pension funds, and do not permit debt on LP interests. PE firms are also restricted to 10%, and only a handful of them are approved.
“These are all self-imposed governors on sale prices,” Ganis said. “The league can adjust at any given time, which would increase team valuations.”