On the latest Sporticast episode, Eben Novy-Williams and Sportico colleague Lev Akabas chat through a number of sports business stats that they find surprising. The conversation spans everything from soccer valuations and NFL sale prices, to Instagram following and volleyball attendance. Here are just few:
Empty Bleachers: There are more than 550 sports teams in the U.S. that average more fans per game than MLB’s Oakland Athletics, including franchises in women’s volleyball, college wrestling, indoor football and college gymnastics.
MLS Value: Despite having none of the most popular, or most watched, soccer teams in the world, there are 20 MLS teams among the world’s 50 most valuable soccer franchises.
Soccer’s Fall: In 2018, the three most valuable soccer teams in the world—Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona—were the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 most valuable sports franchises in the world. In 2024, they’re still the three most valuable soccer teams, but they rank No. 10, No. 13 and No. 21 overall.
NFL Team Sales: The average NFL team is now worth $5.14 billion, but they rarely go up for sale. Of the 32 current NFL ownership groups, there are more (seven) that bought their teams for less than $50,000 than the number (six) that bought their teams for more than $1 billion.
Tennis Pay Gap: In 2003, Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters made more on the WTA Tour than the highest-earning ATP Tour winner, despite the significant pay gap between the two tours. That hasn’t happened since. Even crazier: Clijsters didn’t win a single grand slam that year.
Ticket Parity: The four biggest U.S. sports leagues all make between $2.9 billion and $3.3 billion in tickets sales per year. That’s a narrow window given the huge disparity in number of games, size of venues, ticket price and total audience.
Instagram Audience: The five most-followed U.S. sports teams on Instagram include four from one league, and one outlier from a different league. Any guesses?
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