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New York is Still Home to Four of the 10 Most Valuable Franchises in All of Sports
Is there a state with more well-known professional sports franchises than New York?
The answer is debatable.
Both Texas and California will come up in the discussion. Rightfully so, too. Yet, the Empire State has one thing going for it that the other two don’t: Legalized sports betting. Not only can many of New York’s franchises strike more lucrative partnerships with some of the best betting websites for sports, but the sheer allowance of sports gambling drives heightened interest in teams. And with that interest comes more money. Lots of it.
So it comes as little surprise that in Forbes’ most recent rankings of the most valuable franchises in all of pro sports, four of the top-10 finishers call the New York market their home.
Which ones made the cut?
Let us explore them—and why they are here—below.
New York Yankees
Overall Top-10 Rank: No. 4
Franchise Valuation: $7.55 billion
Don’t stop us if you have heard a lot about this franchise before. We know you have. The New York Yankees are perhaps the most storied organization in all of professional sports. Though the Dallas Cowboys ($10.1 million valuation) are more commonly referred to as America’s team, the Yankees’ history dates back further, and they play in the league (MLB) of the sport that’s considered America’s pastime (baseball).
Clubs with rich histories always get a financial bump. True to that, the Yankees’ 27 World Series titles do a lot of the heavy lifting here. Across all four major sports leagues—MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL—no other squad comes close to touching that kind of success. The Montreal Canadiens of the NHL have 24 championships, and loom as New York’s biggest threat. After that, you’re looking at the NBA’s Boston Celtics (with 18) and Los Angeles Lakers (with 17).
Granted, it helps the Yankees’ case that they’re hyper-relevant today. They have won at least 90 games in six of the past eight seasons, and are on pace to eclipse that threshold again for the 2025 schedule.
New York Knicks
Overall Top-10 Rank: No. 5
Franchise Valuation: $7.50 billion
Finishing inside the top-five valuations across all sports leagues is a wild accomplishment for the New York Knicks. Indeed, they are a flagship team for the NBA. But they do not have nearly the same historical cachet as the aforementioned Yankees, or as NBA rivals like the Celtics and Lakers.
Still, the New York City market remains virtually undefeated. It also helps that the Knicks are no longer schlepping through their era of futility. They have acted like a properly run organization, for the most part, over the past half-decade or so, rather than one run by the nepo-baby billionaire buffoon that is James Dolan.
Moreover, the Orange and Blue are definitely getting a valuation bump from two recent NBA team sales. The Celtics sold this past March at a valuation of $6.1 billion. What’s more, the Buss family agreed in June to sell the Lakers at a $10 billion valuation.
Heck, given that Los Angeles figure, the Knicks might actually need to be bumped up this list. A $7.5 billion valuation just might be too conservative. What a wild thing to consider, right?
New York Giants
Overall Top-10 Rank: No. 7
Franchise Valuation: $7.30 billion
Spending approximately a decade-and-a-half wandering through the wilderness has not done anything to detract from the New York Giants’ valuation. They are the third-most valuable New York team, as well as the fourth-most valuable among all NFL franchises.
This is pretty impressive, all things considered. Since their 2011 Super Bowl victory, the Giants have secured more than nine regular-season victories just once, while making the NFL playoffs only twice – once with Brian Daboll leading the charge.
NFL teams print money relative to all professional sports, except for those legacy soccer franchises across the pond. So, overall, it isn’t too staggering to see the Giants pick up a valuation over $5 billion.
Still, the fact that they remain one of the top-10 most lucrative franchises in all of sports despite their recent reign of futility is at least a little surprising. At the same time, this isn’t even the Giants’ peak. They were apparently worth 23 percent more back in 2023.
New York Jets
Overall Top-10 Rank: No. 9
Franchise Valuation: $6.90 billion
Speaking of decades-long aimlessness!
The New York Jets round out The Empire State’s quartet of franchises with top-10 valuations. And look, we know the New York market packs a mighty financial punch, but the idea of the Jets being basically a $7 billion team is pretty bonkers.
Gang Green has not made the NFL playoffs since 2010 and sports just one winning regular season on their resume during that time. What’s more, the same problem has effectively plagued them over and over again: The Jets can’t seem to identify a franchise quarterback. Either they aren’t willing to try, or they draft the wrong one, or they wind up assigning franchise-QB expectations to aging veterans whose best days are more than a half-decade behind them (shout-out, Aaron Rodgers).
All in all, New York is a fringe-flagship NFL franchise. Their history is rich, but not nearly opulent enough to float them toward this type of valuation. Even the Giants have spit out more recent success.
Chalk this one up to New York market forces yet again, combined with a favorable media-rights deal. The NFL is a whiz at brokering those TV agreements and other deals. Last year, in fact, the average NFL team received nearly $411 million apiece from the league’s own generated revenue streams.
Throw in the big mark appeal of New York, and presto!
You have the recipe for a near-$7 billion valuation that is predicated on very little of anything the Jets have done on the field, at any point, over the past 25 years.
PHOTO: Kevin Coles
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