NFL teams don’t have to work all that hard to cover their expenses these days, with each collecting an estimated $323 million from the league’s national media and sponsorship deals during the 2023 season before selling a single ticket. But the Dallas Cowboys aren’t thinking about breaking even—they’re breaking the bank.
The world’s most valuable sports team, worth $10.1 billion, is also the world’s most profitable, with Jerry Jones’ ’Boys hauling in an estimated $564 million in operating income in 2023. The second-most-profitable team, the Los Angeles Rams, barely reached half that figure, at $286 million, while the New England Patriots landed at No. 3 with $261 million.
In all, the 20 most profitable sports teams feature nine NFL franchises, along with five from the NBA, three from the NHL and three from England’s Premier League. Together, they generated an estimated $3.9 billion in profit during the most recent season with available data, or an average of $195 million per team—up 12% from the previous year’s top 20.
The Cowboys stand out thanks to their nearly $800 million in local revenue, from ticket sales, concessions, merchandise and other streams specific to the club. No other pro football team crossed $400 million.
But Dallas does offer a more replicable model in other respects, starting with the fact that it comes from the NFL, where teams averaged $143 million in operating income in 2023 and no franchise had less than $56 million, according to Forbes estimates. Playing in a big market also gives America’s Team a financial advantage, and controlling its stadium ensures it can extract maximum value from revenue sources including sponsorships and luxury suites, as well as concerts and other non-sports events held at the venue.
It doesn’t hurt, either, that the NFL—like the NBA and the NHL—keeps spending in check with a salary cap system and a collectively bargained split of league-wide revenue between players and team owners. In European soccer leagues, by comparison, UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations keep payrolls in line with club revenue, but there is otherwise no limit on transfer fees or salaries—a major reason that powerhouses like Barcelona (which had a $145 million operating loss during the 2022-23 season) and Paris Saint-Germain ($126 million operating loss) don’t come anywhere near the list of the world’s most profitable sports teams.
Similarly, MLB has a “competitive balance tax” to discourage excessive player spending but no firm cap. That system makes the New York Mets the world’s most unprofitable sports team, with an estimated $292 million operating loss in 2023 after the club paid a reported $101 million in luxury taxes on top of a $375 million payroll.
The Mets are just as much of an outlier as the Cowboys, however. Among the 174 sports teams Forbes valued in 2024, 141 were profitable, and another five broke even. And of the 28 teams that were in the red, 15 came from the still relatively fledgling Major League Soccer.
Long gone are the days when team ownership was merely a matter of ego, or a bet that the capital gains in an eventual sale would outweigh any losses incurred along the way. Now, profitability is the expectation—which helps explain why private equity firms and other institutional investors are suddenly so eager to sink their teeth into sports teams.
The NFL, of course, is a tantalizing target, after the league began to allow private equity firms to acquire minority team stakes in August. But the NBA, which selected its first private equity partner in 2020 and has looser rules for institutional investors than the NFL, could soon shake up the most profitable list. The league’s new national media deals, which take effect next season, are worth more than double its current package—sending a money-making machine into overdrive.
Here are the world’s 20 most profitable sports teams, ranked by estimated operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) during the most recent season with available data.
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The 20 most profitable sports teams are culled from Forbes’ 2024 MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL and global soccer team valuations, as are the figures in the chart titled “The Green Zone.” (The global soccer list included 30 teams across six leagues: 12 from England’s Premier League, nine from the United States’ MLS, three from Spain’s La Liga, three from Italy’s Serie A, two from Germany’s Bundesliga and one from France’s Ligue 1.)
The most profitable ranking reflects Forbes’ estimates of operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the most recent season with available data (2023 for MLB, MLS and the NFL; 2023-24 for the NBA and the NHL; and 2022-23 for European soccer). The profit figures are in U.S. dollars and are rounded to the nearest $1 million.
The listed team values are enterprise values (equity plus net debt) and reflect the economics of each team’s stadium (including revenue from concerts and other non-sports events that accrues to the team’s owner), but they do not incorporate the value of the stadium real estate. Similarly, the values reflect rights fees from regional sports networks owned by the team but do not include the value of the RSNs themselves. Equity stakes in other sports-related assets and mixed-use real estate projects are also excluded.
Sources for Forbes’ estimates included team executives, sports bankers and league consultants; public documents such as stadium lease agreements and credit rating reports; and sponsorship and broadcasting industry executives.
