Forbes: MLS’ Most Valuable Teams
Filed under: Becks, MLS, Moguls, Money
Major League Soccer was on life support at the beginning of this decade…It is a much different game today.
Our first independent study on the finances of Major League Soccer–using past transactions as a guide–shows that three teams are already worth at least $40 million, and the average franchise is worth $37 million.
No surprise which team is #1, but would you have guessed who is at #2…?
Image via PBase
#2 doesn’t surprise me. They fill they’re stadium to capacity at every game. That’s some serious revenue. Plus, with that kind of devotion, jersey and other paraphenilia sales have to be high. As we have seen here in Los Angeles, jersey sales are another serious revenue stream that should not be scoffed at lightly. Look at how often European teams change their jerseys if you need more evidence.
The article implies that building your own soccer specific stadium is key to MLS success. If this is true, I wonder if this should be a requirement for the expansion franchises? The more of these teams we push into the profit regime, the more likely we will be watching really good (i.e. better than what we have right now) soccer in the next decade.
I think MLS has or is now requiring that new franchises also come to the table with stadium deals in place. The real surprise of the Forbes piece was that SUM only distributed $1M to each MLS team (13M total) despite over $23M in revenue from television deals.
I’m surprised SUM isn’t making more money.