On this day in 1972 Robert Irsay bought what becomes the Indianapolis Colts for $19M. In today’s money that would be worth about $110M, which would only be able to buy him about 6% of the current team.
Today, unlike in 1972, teams are valued in the billions as opposed to tens of millions. The Dallas Cowboys, the team with the highest current value of $4 billion, pulled in $620 million in revenue in 2014, a record for a sports team in the United States.
The second place New England Patriots are valued at $3.2 billion, generating $494 in revenue in 2014. With that revenue they were able to rake in $195 million in operating income in 2014 as well.
In our “Sports Metric of the Week” we look at the top 10 highest current value NFL teams compared to 1972 to see how much team worth has increased in the past 44 years.
