Sportico claims NHL franchises on average are worth more than $billion dollars.
There are some journalists who have a lot of time on their hands and those people put out their assessment of what a sports franchise is worth. But a sports franchise is worth only what a potential owner thinks its value is when completing a sale of the business. For what it is worth, Sportico ranked the value of each franchise in the National Hockey League from one to 32. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ business is at the top and the Columbus Blue Jackets franchise is at the bottom worth $1.3 billion. The Blue Jackets original ownership spent $80 million in 1997 to join the league. That $80 million figure would be about $160 million in today’s money. For whatever reason, there is still some good feeling about the NHL’s “Original Six” which was not the NHL’s “Original Six” teams and actually could be viewed as a business failure as the league stayed at six teams from 1942 through 1967 and did not grow the business. Toronto, the New York Rangers, Montréal and Boston are four of the “Original Six” and top the valuations list.
For whatever it is worth, Sportico has the Leafs’ franchise on top worth $4.25 billion. James Dolan’s New York Rangers business comes in at $3.25 billion. Twelve of the NHL’s 32 teams have valuations of more than $2 billion dollars. Los Angeles is number five but the real surprise in the Sportico list is the small market Edmonton Oilers business, a franchise that deals in Canadian money, which is about 72 cents US comes in at number six. Chicago is at number 7, Philadelphia is eighth, Washington ninth and Detroit rounds out the top ten. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman makes his bosses, the owners, a lot of money.
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