In their latest MLB Franchise Value Rankings, Bloomberg ranked the New York Mets 4th out of 30 major league teams with a value of just over 2.0 Billion dollars.
In calculating team value, Bloomberg News examined revenue from ticket sales, concessions, sponsorships and broadcast rights, as well as interests in TV channels, radio stations and real estate.
The average value of a Major League Baseball team is $1 billion, more than 35 percent higher than previous estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The New York Yankees are worth $3.3 billion, making them the sport’s most-valuable enterprise. The Los Angeles Dodgers rank second with a value of $2.1 billion followed by the Boston Red Sox and then the New York Mets.
“Major League Baseball is catching up to valuations of the National Football League,” Anthony Di Santi, the managing director of the sports finance advisory division of New York-based Citigroup Inc.’s private bank, said at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit on Sept. 10. “It’s because they’ve been exploiting the media opportunities that are available to them on a national level.”
Business Week also adds that the average value of a team’s interest in a regional network is about $360 million, with the Mets’ 65 percent stake in SportsNet New York having the biggest valuation of almost $1.2 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Joseph Ravitch, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner who is co-founder of Raine Group LLC, a New York-based merchant bank that works with several MLB teams, said some regional networks shouldn’t be considered in a franchise’s valuation.
“The equity value of SNY is zero, since the owners use it to cover $75 million a year in Mets losses,” Ravitch said from his office in New York.
David Cohen, the Mets general counsel, said the team declined to comment on its debt and valuation.
Last week, in responding to a reader who spoke about the Mets’ debt payment due in June, I told him once the Mets are revalued at over $1.5 billion they will have plenty of equity to make that payment. I never thought they’d be valued at over $2 billion. The Wilpons are having a good day.
