Is this why being a Vikings fan is a bannable offense?

[Franklinnoble]

NFL franchise values going up, up, up ...

Dan Weil / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 hours ago



The value of NFL franchises continues to skyrocket, and most experts don't see any end to the trend in sight.


The average value of the NFL's 32 teams soared 12 percent in the last year to $819 million, according to Forbes magazine's latest survey. And even the bottom team on Forbes' list — the Minnesota Vikings, valued at $658 million — exceeds the value of every other team in U.S. sports except the New York Yankees.

The richest teams
Rk.	Team	Sport	Value (in millions)
1.	Washington Redskins	Football	$1,264
2.	Manchester United	Soccer	$1,251
3.	Dallas Cowboys	Football	$1,063
4.	New England Patriots	Football	$1,040
5.	Philadelphia Eagles	Football	$952
6.	New York Yankees	Baseball	$950
7.	Houston Texans	Football	$946
8.	Real Madrid	Soccer	$920
9.	Denver Broncos	Football	$907
10.	AC Milan	Soccer	$893
Courtesy Forbes Magazine

Proving that you don't have to win to make money, the Washington Redskins top Forbes' NFL list for the sixth consecutive year, with a valuation of $1.26 billion, up 15 percent from last year. The Redskins have suffered three consecutive losing seasons. Two other teams were valued at more than $1 billion: the Dallas Cowboys at $1.06 billion and the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots at $1.04 billion.

"The NFL has really separated itself from any other sport," said Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes' associate editor who oversaw the list. "Baseball bills itself as the national pastime, but football is the real American game when you get down to it."

The biggest factor behind the NFL's financial growth is exploding TV revenue. The league's new TV contracts for the next six years amount to a stunning 53 percent increase over the previous deals, Badenhausen said. Next season's TV money will total $3.7 billion, or about $116 million for each team.

"The NFL has the premier broadcasting property on the planet," said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a sports business consulting firm in Chicago. "Not even a movie studio is as valuable as NFL broadcasts. The NFL is appointment TV."

With each team's regular-season schedule consisting of only 16 games, the NFL has "managed to create buzz around every regular-season game," as Badenhausen put it. "While other sports' core TV audience is going off a cliff, the NFL is able to maintain a solid audience with strong demographics. That's why networks are willing to pay up to televise it."

NFL teams also are making huge amounts of money from their stadiums, with many teams having built new ones or are in the process of doing so. Naming rights deals for the venues can bring teams tens of millions of dollars a year. And they are also pulling in big bucks for luxury suites, club seats and signage.

"New stadiums are packed with expensive luxury suites, clubs seats and a ton of signage opportunities," Badenhausen said. "Corporate sponsors are able to sign on big packages with suites, signs and sponsorship of local broadcasts. Teams at the top are generating $30 million a year in marketing revenue and another $40 million-$50 million a year in premium seat revenue."

NFL owners also benefit from the fact that many of their stadiums are at least partially financed with public money. "The NFL is relatively successful in getting poor people to pay for sales taxes to pay for sports stadiums so the teams don't have to pay," said John Siegfried, professor of economics at Vanderbilt University. "A bowling alley operator or movie theater owner has to build their own facilities. But somehow we feel that people who go into football don't have to pay."

The NFL's salary cap also boosts the value of franchises by holding down player costs. "The NFL's cap works better than that of any other sport," Siegfried said. While teams occasionally go over the cap for short periods, over 10-year spans every team is spending about the same amount, Badenhausen said.

The NFL's revenue sharing arrangement also has lifted franchise values. In addition to TV money, teams split an equal percentage of ticket sales as well as national sponsorship and licensing contracts. Each team received about $12 million last season for its share of gate receipts for away games, Badenhausen said.

But with disparity growing in teams' local, unshared revenue, big-market teams are starting to disagree with small-market teams about how far revenue sharing should go. According to a team executive cited in The Wall Street Journal, the top eight teams in total revenue last season averaged $75 million more than those in the bottom quarter, up from a $30 million difference in 1998.

"There is really a division among teams in new stadiums in big markets, like New England, Philadelphia, Washington and Houston and teams that don't play in new stadiums like the Chargers, Vikings and Raiders," Badenhausen said. "These teams can't generate the kind of revenues as teams in the new stadiums," and that's why conflicts are arising.

The NFL also has to negotiate with its players union an extension to the collective bargaining agreement, which is set to expire after the 2007 season. If accords can't be reached among owners themselves and between owners and players, NFL franchise values can't keep rising in double-digit percentage amounts, experts said.

But they agreed that the owners are unlikely to slay the goose that has laid their golden eggs. "For now, there is reason to be sanguine about owner and labor relations," said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College.

Badenhausen put it more starkly: "There is so much money at stake that I can almost guarantee you the NFL will work out its problems. They would be absolutely crazy to upset this very profitable league."
Dan Weil is a frequent FOXSports.com contributor, and can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].

***

Maybe now that Red McCombs is out of the picture, the team won't be red-headed stepchild of the league anymore...

[RendeR]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Maybe now that Red McCombs is out of the picture, the team won't be red-headed stepchild of the league anymore...

Pshaw, until that teams actually wins a super bowl, they'll always be the red headed stepchild of the NFL.

And yes it will still be a bannable offense

[sovereignstar]

I hope I don't ever have to zing my wife on a message board.

[capsicum]

honey, theres fresh bedding and pillows located in the upstairs hall closet. Enjoy.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by capsicum

honey, theres fresh bedding and pillows located in the upstairs hall closet. Enjoy.

OMFG!!1! I just got SharOWNED! WTF!?!!?

[Cringer]

back and forth chatter between a husband and wife on this board is really not needed...