Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots top list of world's most profitable sports teams

Heading into the 2023 NFL season, Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys are still the most valuable and profitable sports franchise in the world, according to Forbes.

The team is worth a whopping $8 billion, which is $1.8 billion more than the No. 2 most-valuable team, the New England Patriots. The Cowboys have managed to post massive valuations despite not claiming the Lombardi Trophy since 1995.

The Cowboys made $1.17 billion from 2019-21, topping the Robert Kraft-owned Patriots by more than $400 million in that span.

World’s Most Profitable Sports Teams: Cowboys Banked $1.2 Billion Over The Past Three Years via @forbes https://t.co/QwupDy7gY0

— Mike Ozanian (@MikeOzanian) June 2, 2023

After the Cowboys and Patriots, the English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur is third in operating income, followed by the New York Knicks, Manchester United and the Houston Texans.

The NFL has 13 of the top 25 most profitable teams thanks to the massively profitable broadcasting deals with the world’s top broadcasters. In 2021, each NFL team raked in a total of $198 million from Fox, ESPN, CBS and NBC. The 13 teams are the Cowboys, Patriots, Texans, Giants, Rams, Commanders, Bears, Jaguars, Broncos, Dolphins, Jets, Steelers, and Eagles, in that order.

In terms of overall value, the NFL has 30 of the top 50 most valuable sports franchises, according to Forbes.

The staggering numbers prove how dominant the NFL’s grip on American sports culture has become. Football became the nation’s favorite sport to watch for the first time in 1972 and hasn’t lost steam since.

Cowboys top 2022 attendance figures

The NFC East featured the teams with the most and least attendance for the 2022 regular season. According to the NFL’s official attendance figures, the Dallas Cowboys once again topped the league, meanwhile, the scandal-plagued Washington Commanders ranked last out of the 32 teams.

Dallas has ranked first in average home attendance every year since the opening of AT&T Stadium in 2009. The stadium capacity of 100,000 when expanded is No. 2 in the league. SoFi Stadium can contain just a few hundred more.

The Cowboys averaged 93,465 fans per home game in 2022, up from 93,421 in 2021. Second in attendance behind Dallas were the New York Jets with an average of 78,009 fans per home game.

The Commanders, who finished the 2022 season with an 8-8-1 record, averaged 58,106 fans per game. The NFL’s overall average for all 32 teams was 69,389 in 2022, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Dallas’s other NFC East rivals, the Giants and the Eagles, ranked No. 3 and No. 12, respectively.