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Minnesota Vikings: Forbes ranks team No. 49 on list of most valuable franchises

By Dan Zinski

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Forbes magazine is bullish on the Minnesota Vikings and the rest of the NFL.

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The financial magazine’s latest listing of the 50 most valuable franchises in all of sports features no fewer than 20 NFL teams. So a full 40% of the world’s most valuable teams are NFL franchises, more than any other sports league on earth. And the Vikings are part of that 40%.

According to Forbes, the Vikings are currently the 49th most valuable team with an estimated worth of $1.15 billion. If Zygi Wilf ever wanted to sell high, now might be the time.

The top 50 teams are now worth an average of $1.75 billion, up a whopping 31% from just last year. 69 teams are now worth at least $1 billion according to Forbes.

Forbes attributes the massive boom in sports franchise value to hugely lucrative media deals:

"The undisputed TV king in the world of sports is the NFL, which kicked off new network deals last year worth more than $5 billion a year, not including its $1.5 billion-a-year pact with DirecTV. The NBA inked a $2.66 billion-a-year deal in October with ESPN and TNT, which was triple the previous rate. Regional sports networks are committing to long-term deals with baseball teams, like the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 25-year, $8.35 billion contract with Time Warner Cable TWC +1.5%. The English Premier League joined the party in February with a $2.7 billion-a-year pact with Sky, which kicks off in 2016 and represents a 70% bump on the current deal."

The single most valuable franchise in the world is the soccer team Real Madrid, which actually lost some value over last year but is still worth $3.26 billion. The NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and MLB’s New York Yankees tied for second at $3.2 billion each.

As for the rest of the NFL, the champion New England Patriots landed at No. 6 overall with a value of $2.6 billion, followed by the Washington Redskins at No. 9 ($2.4 billion), the New York Giants at No. 12 ($2.1 billion), the Houston Texans at No. 16 ($1.85 billion) and the New York Jets at No. 17 ($1.8 billion).

The Green Bay Packers came in at No. 29 with a value of $1.38 billion, which should make the team’s fan “owners” very happy.

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