Yankees Top Forbes’ List as Baseball’s Highest Valued Club

Forbes released their annual rankings of the highest valued professional sports franchises and entities in the world. The Yankees are currently worth a staggering $3.7 billion.

About a week ago, Noah Syndergaard unleashed a media firestorm when he claimed New York was now a Mets town — no longer a Yankees. A number of media outlets were quick to follow-up Thor’s rhetoric with why they felt he was correct.

Perhaps the 6-foot-6 right-hander should have waited until Forbes released the update to their annual Sports Money Index (SMI) before making such boastful claims.

Per the Forbes report, the average MLB team saw a 19 percent increase in their overall value — around $1.54 billion. The Yankees, who topped the MLB portion of the list at $3.7 billion, trail only Real Madrid (No. 2) and Barcelona (No. 3) as the highest valued professional sports franchise in the entire world.

As for the second-highest ranked MLB club — that would be the Los Angeles Dodgers, who come in almost a billion dollars behind New York’s “second team,” at $2.75 billion.

The Yankees, who have topped the MLB side of this list for 20 years in a row, moved up six spots in total since 2016. They eclipsed the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Creative Arts Agency (CAA) and Lionel Messi.

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It’s amazing to think that Ronaldo and Messi — for as great as they are — are singular players in a team sport, yet find themselves worth more money than the whole of the New York Knicks (No. 11), Budweiser (No. 13) and the New England Patriots (No. 15).

Ronaldo, who made a cool $55 million in salary from La Liga’s Real Madrid in 2016, grossed close to $90 million in profits after you include his laundry list of endorsement deals. For those wondering how the SMI tabulates their findings, here you go:

The SMI is the definitive ranking of the sports business world’s most powerful entities, including teams, athletes, brands and agencies. It accounts not only for financial wealth but also relationships with others throughout the sports business world, an area in which the Yankees excel. The team’s brand partners include Bank of America, Pepsi and Budweiser, while the Yanks are also one of just ten global sports teams to employ three athletes who appear on one of our highest-paid athletes lists (CC Sabathia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Masahiro Tanaka).

As for the Yanks’ main rivals, the Boston Red Sox, they can be found at No. 22 (worth $2.3 billion). If you’re wondering where those aforementioned Mets are, you’ll have to scroll down aways on the Forbes page to spot them at No. 54.

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I’m not sure how being valued at $1.7 billion makes you the official team of New York, but whatever makes Syndergaard and his mates sleep better at night is fine by me.