Death, taxes, and the Dallas Cowboys being worth a ton of money.
Technically speaking here “a ton” simply means more than literally everyone else. Wednesday saw Sportico release their annual rankings and you will be shocked to learn that the Cowboys are once again kings.
According to Sportico, the Cowboys are valued at $15.5B. That B stands for billion, by the way.
The ranking in question focuses mostly on the NFL and it should come as no surprise that most teams are ridiculously loaded. The Cowboys have a lead of almost $3 billion against the closest NFL team as the Los Angeles Rams sit valued at $12.7B.
Perhaps the most interesting set of data in this analysis is the operating profits of each team. The Cowboys literally doubled up their nearest challenger, once again the Rams, as they had $510M in profit last year compared to L.A.’s $255M.
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.
Again, none of this is shocking to anyone who has been paying attention. The Cowboys are worth an enormous amount of money and if they were ever sold they would go for a figure that is difficult to conceive. Consider that the Los Angeles Lakers were sold about an hour after the Sportico report went live and that they went for $12.5B. The Cowboys would go for a much, much higher amount.