Nicolas Scelles
Boris Helleu
Christophe Durand
Liliane Bonnal

Since the beginning of the nineties, professional sports firm values have been estimated by American newspapers. In 2004, Forbes proposed for the first time a list of the most valuable European soccer teams. In this article, we compare the determinants of firm values in MLB, the NBA, NFL, NHL, and European soccer over the period 2004-2011. The results show only one variable for which the sign and significance are the same for all the leagues: historical sports performance, with a significantly positive impact in each league. The comparison between the United States and Europe reveals that...Read more

Rodney Fort

The unwillingness of team owners to share their data prohibits a direct assessment of the value of professional team sports ownership. But insights into that value can be gleaned from actual team sale prices. First, throughout the entire modern history of Major League Baseball (MLB), the average real growth in team sale prices is twice the usual comparison value of 3% for the economy at large. Second, aggregated at the franchise level, the average rate of growth is about 1.6 times the 3% comparison. Third, the real growth rate an owner can expect from time of purchase to time of sale over...Read more