The Dallas Cowboys, an American football team, have been ranked as the 2025 most valuable sports team by Forbes. The football clubs hitting the list include Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Liverpool.
The total value of the 50 teams on the list is estimated at $353 billion, with the Dallas Cowboys once again topping the list at $13 billion. The NFL team has been leading the ranking since 2016.
The domination of NFL teams on the list is evident — 30 out of the 32 league teams are included. While NFL franchises surged 25% in value this year, the most valuable European football clubs grew only 5%, mainly due to stagnating broadcasting revenue, rising costs, and debt.
This resulted in only four football clubs emerging on the most valuable teams list — two from Spain’s La Liga and two from the English Premier League. English Manchester City, German Bayern Munich and UEFA Champions League title holder Paris Saint-Germain dropped out of the ranking.
Notably, the last team to lead the ranking before the Cowboys was Real Madrid. In 2015, the Spanish club’s value was estimated at $3.26 billion, while the American team was valued at $3.2 billion.
It’s also worth noting that no National Hockey League teams are on the list.
Forbes estimates the value of a team based on a set of parameters. The main one is equity plus net debt. In addition, the economic indicators of each team’s stadium are taken into account, but not the value of the stadium property. Similarly, the value includes licensing fees from regional sports networks owned by the team, but not the value of the networks themselves. Shares in other sports assets and multifunctional real estate projects are also not taken into account.
