It is worth as much as someone wants it to be.
There are some people in journalism 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, the Arizona franchise is #32. 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.
For whatever it is worth, Sportico has the Leafs’ franchise on top worth $2.12 billion but the list does not indicate if it is in American greenbacks or Canadian loonies. James Dolan’s New York Rangers business comes in at slightly more than $2 billion. Eleven of the NHL’s 32 teams have valuations of a billion dollars or more. Montréal, Chicago and Boston round out the top five. National Hockey League franchises have been or will be on the market. The Nashville Predators business, which is located in a small market, apparently will change hands and the cost of that transaction is a reported $775 million. The Ottawa Senators franchise could be on the block and this one might get interesting. Sportico has the Senators business worth $655 million, although it is not listed as US or Canadian dollars. The present team ownership group has the right to build an arena in Ottawa which could drive the team’s value up. Arizona is looking to build a Tempe arena-village which could make that franchise more valuable.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
