The NFL’s Most Valuable Teams 2025

Football’s 32 clubs are worth $7.1 billion on average, a 25% year-over-year jump, but the Dallas Cowboys sit tall in the saddle with a record valuation for any sports franchise.

Last August, the Dallas Cowboys became the first pro sports team ever worth $10 billion. But a handful of stake sales around the NFL over the past 12 months—as well as the $6.1 billion sale of the NBA’s Boston Celtics and the $10 billion deal for the Los Angeles Lakers—have shown that investors are more desperate than ever to join the sports franchise dogpile, and the Cowboys have now galloped right past the $11 billion and $12 billion thresholds on the way to their latest financial first down.

For the 19th straight year, Dallas is the NFL’s most valuable team, worth $13 billion, according to Forbes estimates—up 29% from 2024 and double its valuation from just four years ago. And the Cowboys have new company in the $10 billion club, with the Los Angeles Rams now worth $10.5 billion and the New York Giants close behind at $10.1 billion.

All 32 NFL teams are worth at least $5 billion for the first time, with the Cincinnati Bengals setting the floor at $5.25 billion—a figure that surpasses all 32 NHL clubs in Forbes’ ranking last year and all but seven franchises across the most recent NBA and MLB valuation lists. The average team value in the NFL now sits at $7.1 billion, a 25% increase over 2024 and a 104% jump from 2021, and league-wide revenue climbed to an estimated $21.2 billion during the 2024 season, rising 74% over the same four-year period.

The Cowboys, however, are in a league of their own with estimated 2024 revenue of $1.2 billion, leading every other NFL team by at least $400 million. In fact, remove the roughly $440 million that every club received from the league office—from national media, sponsorship and merchandise, as well as a pooled portion of league-wide ticket revenue—and Dallas still collected nearly $800 million in purely local revenue, more than the total revenue of every other team except the Las Vegas Raiders.

Even more astonishing, the Cowboys posted operating income of $629 million last season, according to Forbes estimates, meaning Dallas made more in profit than 16 teams logged in revenue.

That money-making machine, coupled with the franchise’s massive fan base and enduring legacy, has led some bankers to conclude that, while $13 billion seems like a fair price for the Cowboys given pro football’s current economics, longtime owner Jerry Jones might draw even higher bids if he ever decided to put the team on the market.

It’s not just Dallas that has an astronomical price tag, either. Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross sold a 13% stake in his holding company (which also includes Hard Rock Stadium and Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix) at an $8.1 billion valuation in December, the same month that the Buffalo Bills fetched $5.8 billion in a deal for 20.6% of the team and the Philadelphia Eagles sold off 8% at an $8.3 billion valuation. Meanwhile, a 6.2% slice of the San Francisco 49ers sold for $8.6 billion in May, and the Chicago Bears reached an agreement this month to sell a roughly 2% stake at an $8.8 billion valuation.

Despite that run of activity—which also included deals at undisclosed valuations for 8% of the Los Angeles Chargers and 15% of the Las Vegas Raiders—the NFL has not seen a control sale since a group led by private equity billionaire Josh Harris purchased the Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion in July 2023. That lag is important because the extent to which the implied valuation in a minority sale reflects the true price of a sports team can be a bit murky. (Traditionally, limited partners have gotten a discount—often 20% to 25%—because they typically have no say in the operations of the team. In recent years, however, tiny slivers of teams have sometimes been sold at a significant premium because the relatively small buy-in has expanded the pool of bidders.)

Still, bankers believe that most of the recent deals are at least in range of a control valuation—even in cases where Forbes’ valuations from just a few months prior look relatively paltry, such as the Eagles (valued at $6.6 billion in August 2024) and the 49ers ($6.8 billion). Notably, after the NFL adjusted its rules last August to allow private equity firms to join its ownership ranks, Ares Management was among the investors in the Dolphins deal, and Arctos Partners bought pieces of the Bills and the Chargers. As a rule, institutional investors are not known for letting ego or emotion inflate the prices they are willing to pay.

The lure of NFL ownership starts with the league’s national media deals, which took effect in 2022 and 2023 and locked in $125.5 billion in revenue over the next decade. But many around the sport expect that number to end up considerably higher because the league can opt out of most of its agreements in 2029 and secure even better rates, capitalizing on the success the NBA had negotiating an 11-year, $76 billion package with Amazon, ESPN and NBC last year. The NFL also moved this month to acquire a 10% stake in ESPN in exchange for the NFL Network and other media assets, including the TV rights to the RedZone channel.

Meanwhile, the NFL continues to increase its marketing revenue, approaching $2.5 billion in team sponsorships last season in a 6% rise from the previous year, according to research firm SponsorUnited. And football has plenty of room to grow internationally, where the NFL’s broadcast rights are negligible and teams have only recently started to devote real resources as part of the league’s global markets program.

One other clear perk of NFL ownership is that it has become nearly impossible to lose money in the league, with the 32 teams averaging $127 million in operating income last season and no team falling below $21 million, according to Forbes estimates. That kind of profitability isn’t guaranteed in other sports, such as MLB, where Forbes estimates that 11 teams were in the red last season.

The result of all of those tailwinds is that Forbes now pegs the average revenue multiple in the NFL at 10.7x, spiking from 9x in 2024 and 6.4x five years ago. And as the league scans the field for its next big score, it may already be in the red zone: The Giants are searching for a buyer for around 10% of the franchise.

The Most Valuable NFL Teams 2025

#1. $13 billion

One-Year Change: 29% | Revenue: $1.234 billion | Operating Income: $629 million | Owner: Jerry Jones

#2. $10.5 billion

One-Year Change: 38% | Revenue: $764 million | Operating Income: $244 million | Owner: E. Stanley Kroenke

#3. $10.1 billion

One-Year Change: 38% | Revenue: $707 million | Operating Income: $181 million | Owners: John Mara, Steven Tisch

#4. $9 billion

One-Year Change: 22% | Revenue: $762 million | Operating Income: $222 million | Owner: Robert Kraft

#5. $8.6 billion

One-Year Change: 26% | Revenue: $723 million | Operating Income: $115 million | Owner: York family

#6. $8.3 billion

One-Year Change: 26% | Revenue: $688 million | Operating Income: $117 million | Owner: Jeffrey Lurie