The Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable professional sports franchise in the world… again.
Welcome back. It has been a year. There is death, there are taxes and then there is the inevitability among inevitabilities.
For what feels like the millionth year in a row, the Dallas Cowboys have topped the Forbes list of most valuable professional sports franchises in the world. The Cowboys are officially valued over $10 billion with mark of $10.1B. It will surely make you feel great to know they are the first team to reach the 11-figure mark.
For the ninth straight year, the Dallas Cowboys are the world’s most valuable sports team, worth an estimated $10.1 billion—the first to cross the 11-figure threshold and $1.3 billion beyond their closest competition. But there is plenty of movement among the top 50 teams, with 12 NBA franchises now flooding the ranking, double the six on last year’s list and led by the Golden State Warriors, worth an estimated $8.8 billion and No. 2 overall.
To be fair, that increase is due in part to a change in the timing of Forbes’ list, but basketball’s march up the financial leaderboard also reflects real gains by the NBA’s teams. The league’s 30 franchises were worth $4.4 billion on average this year, a 15% increase over 2023 and a staggering 596% jump from a decade ago (a 21% compound annual return). No other sport represented among the 50 most valuable teams comes close to that appreciation.
Objectively speaking for a second, this is obviously highly impressive and speaks to the global brand power that the Dallas Cowboys have. They have led this list for almost an entire decade. Clearly they know what they are doing relative to this specific space.
It goes without saying that fans of the team hardly take any pride in this, though. Maybe we did at one point in time, but as the organization has continued to grow The Drought™ this type of thing has become more of a sobering reality that this exact type of thing may be all that the Cowboys care about winning.
Consider the top 10 teams on this list, their last championship appearance (relative to their sport obviously) and their last championship victory.
Forbes’ Top 10 Most Valuable Sports Franchises, 2024
| Team | Year of last championship appearance | Year of last championship |
|---|---|---|
| Dallas Cowboys | 1995 | 1995 |
| Golden State Warriors | 2022 | 2022 |
| Los Angeles Rams | 2021 | 2021 |
| New York Yankees | 2024 | 2009 |
| New York Knicks | 1999 | 1973 |
| New England Patriots | 2018 | 2018 |
| New York Giants | 2011 | 2011 |
| Los Angeles Lakers | 2020 | 2020 |
| New York Jets | 1968 | 1968 |
| San Francisco 49ers | 2023 | 1994 |
As you can see the Cowboys have the fourth-largest title drought among the top 10 so things aren’t too embarrassing; however, they do have the second-largest title game appearance drought. Shout out to the New York Jets.
Again, it is wild to consider that the Cowboys are valued so highly and that they continue to dominate this list. It makes you wonder how high of a space they could orbit if they managed to win the Super Bowl in today’s day and age. Maybe someday we will find out.
