Redskins no longer the most valuable franchise

by Skin Patrol on Sep 14, 2007 2:21 PM EDT in News

My amigo Seth from Double T Nation, ever aware that I'm interested in Redskins related news cycles, sent me an email noting that the Washington Redskins are no longer the most valuable franchise in sports. I should also shout out Niners Nation as the resident blogger sent me an email as well, linking to the Forbes article that claims as much.

A typical blogger response would be to call shenanigans, question the Forbes methodology or call their conclusion absurd, especially since they've bestowed the Most Valuable Franchise moniker to our hated rival Cowboys. The truth is, when Forbes called the Redskins the most valuable franchise I was all over it, saying out awesome it was and how right they were. As a matter of consistency, the Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in the NFL, sports.

Silver lining is that we're still second. At 1.5B, the Cowboys just squeeze over us (1.467B) and both our teams eat the rest of the league by many hundreds of millions of dollars. This is thanks largely to the efforts of Jerry Jones and his new stadium:

The architect of modern-stadium economics and owner of the Dallas Cowboys will unleash a $1 billion stadium (financed with a mix of private and public money) in 2009 that will have other NFL owners begging for mercy.

Thanks to their new stadium, which Jerry Jones will operate, the Cowboys are now worth $1.5 billion, putting them atop the NFL team value rankings for the first time in eight years and making Dallas the most valuable sports franchise in the world. The owners of teams like the Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars have been moaning that the several million dollars they get each year in aggregate from richer teams like Dallas, Washington and New England is insufficient to keep them competitive. Well, wait until Ralph Wilson, Arthur Blank and Wayne Weaver see the Cowboys' new stadium.

Good for you on moving up the list, which is where the comparison stops. As Football Guys notes, however, the Cowboys aren't the most profitable, nor do they generate the most income. The data reveals that the Washington Redskins are still number one in total revenue with 312M. We also have the highest operating income with 66M (for comparison, the Cowboys have 4.3M, which is 8th lowest in the league). We are 2nd in Operating Margin, which is operating income divided by revenues, behind only the Raiders. This is another category the Cowboys lag in, at 25th.

We'll take back the overall value spot next year, after the Redskins win the Super Bowl.

AOL Fanhouse, Cowboys Overtake Redskins As Forbes Most Valuable Franchise

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I'm not a financial analyst...

so I had to look up operating income:

A measure of a company's earning power from ongoing operations, equal to earnings before deduction of interest payments and income taxes. also called operating profit or EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes).

So, the only reason the Cowboys are first is because of their near-billion dollar stadium. They have a 1-year change of 28% and the next highest is New Orleans at 16% so they had quite a jump with the addition of the stadium deal.

by TexSkins on Sep 15, 2007 4:17 PM EDT 0 recs