Forbes: Average value of NFL teams declines two percent

[madinmaryland]

NEW YORK (AP) - The average value for NFL teams has fallen for the first time since Forbes began keeping track in 1998.

The magazine released its annual ranking of NFL team values Wednesday, and it found larger-market teams have weathered the rough economy far better than their smaller counterparts. Overall, the average value decreased 2 percent from last year to $1.022 billion.

None of the top 12 franchises lost more than 3 percent of their value. The bottom six dropped by 5 percent to 16 percent.

The Dallas Cowboys remained the league's richest team, and widened the gap between themselves and the rest of the NFL. They're now worth $1.805 billion, their value increasing a league-best 9 percent.

On the other end of the spectrum was Jacksonville. The struggling Jaguars lost 16 percent of their value to fall to last place at $725 million. The St. Louis Rams lost 15 percent of their value and the Buffalo Bills 12 percent.

The second-highest valued team, the Washington Redskins, remained steady at $1.55 billion. The New England Patriots, New York Giants and Houston Texans rounded out the top five.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/nfl/08/25/nflteam.values.ap/index.html

Cueing all of The Dallas Cowboy Haters and Jerry Jones Haters!!1!!

[Upton]

1. Hmm....

Only the Cowboys, Texans, Colts, New Orleans Saints (who won their first Super Bowl) and San Francisco 49ers went up.

[Auggie]

2. From Forbes:

NFL team values fell 2% last season to an average of $1.02 billion, the first decline since Forbes began tracking the league's finances in 1998, with 21 of the league's 32 teams seeing their worths drop. (Note: Our valuations are enterprise values, and include revenue from stadiums but not the value of the real estate.) Team values slipped because the bad economy has reduced demand (there are fewer people with the cash to buy a team, and borrowing has become more difficult) and less nonbroadcasting revenue for many teams.

But thanks to long-term television contracts negotiated before the recession, the NFL's profitability has never been stronger. National television revenue from CBS, NBC, ESPN and Fox increased $1.3 million per team to $95.8 million for each of the league's 32 franchises. NFL teams got a big boost when the league settled its long-running dispute with Comcast last May concerning broadcasting the NFL Network. The 10-year deal pushed each team's take from its nonnetwork media contracts to $45.8 million, up $9.3 million (revenues from DirecTV are the biggest component of this). Aggregate league revenue rose 5.8% to $8 billion.

But for all the good news, a ticking time bomb remains. Team owners and players are locked in a showdown surrounding their collective bargaining agreement, which expires after this season. Before the current uncapped season, the CBA required teams to pay players no more than 60% and not less than 56% of league revenue, net of deductions for capital expenditures and a portion of local revenue. The league has been showcasing the Green Bay Packers as the poster child as to why this formula is no longer sustainable (the Packers are owned by local shareholders and therefore the only NFL team that releases financial statements). Indeed the Pack's player costs rose from $139 million in 2008 to $161 million last season, while operating profits declined from $20 million to $10 million during the same time.

Yet most other teams increased player costs modestly. Total player costs for the NFL increased only 4% last year to $4.5 billion. Half the increase was in the form of salaries and the other half was for benefits, which were $25.8 million per team last year. As a result, operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) during the 2009 season rose to a record average of $33 million per team, $1 million more than the previous year.

The real problem is that the National Football League is evolving into a tiered league, with the upper one-third defined by entrepreneurial owners whose teams typically play in big markets and stadiums that generate insane amounts of cash. Most of the remaining teams are run by cautious owners who play in small markets with low-revenue stadiums.

MORE: http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/25/most-valuable-nfl-teams-business-sports-football-valuations-10-intro.html

[El Supremo]

3. Now that Steinbrenner is gone, Jerry must be the..

biggest rich asshole in sports.

[madinmaryland]

4. THREE Super Bowl Rings. Nuff said.

[Capt. America]

5. better call the waaaaaaaambulance for the taxpayer-supported billionaires