Red Sox: How much is the franchise worth?
By Sean Penney
The Boston Red Sox are rated by Forbes as the third most valuable franchise in baseball, coming in at a whopping $2.3 billion.
Ever wonder how much it would cost to own a Major League Baseball team? The true answer is that a franchise is worth as much as someone is willing to bid for it, but we can get an idea of what ballpark those figures would be in from estimates provided by Forbes.
According to these estimates, the Boston Red Sox are the third most valuable franchise in baseball with a value of $2.3 billion. The New York Yankees earned the top spot on this list for the 19th straight year with a value of $3.4 billion, while the Los Angeles Dodgers came in second at $2.5 billion.
The Red Sox generated $398 million in revenue last year and had $43 million in operating income. Boston’s 2015 payroll came in at $198.8 million, which was third highest in the majors according to Spotrac.com.
The team has paid a total of $325 million into the revenue sharing pool over the last four years, second only to the Yankees.
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The average MLB team is worth $1.3 billion, up 7 percent from last year. Forbes attributes most of the largest increases in team value to new, or anticipated, television deals. The rise of digital revenue has also contributed, as owners are equal investors in the league’s Advanced Media company.
Business is booming, with interest in our national pastime on the rise thanks to the emergence of young superstars like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who have become the new faces of the league. Boston has several of their own young stars in the making, such as Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, that will help captivate a new generation of Red Sox fans.
You can see why the Red Sox were willing to shell out $217 million to lure in David Price this winter. He’ll help the team get back on a winning track, which in turn makes the franchise even more valuable. As staggering as their payroll appears, ownership is still raking in piles of money.
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Principal owner John Henry has shown no indication that he would be willing to sell the team anytime soon, which is wise considering the value of the franchise continues to rise. The list provided by Forbes simply gives us a hypothetical viewpoint of what it may cost, while comparing the value of the Red Sox to other franchises around the league.