The relentless rise in revenue is sending the value of the league’s 30 franchises skyward, to an average of $4.4 billion, up 15% from last year. No team would sell for less than $3 billion, Forbes now estimates, and three clubs are worth at least $7 billion: the Golden State Warriors ($8.8 billion), the New York Knicks ($7.5 billion) and the Los Angeles Lakers ($7.1 billion). Only five other teams in any sport—the $7.55 billion New York Yankees and four NFL franchises, led by the $10.1 billion Dallas Cowboys—currently reach that lofty threshold.
In one clear sign of investors’ appetite to buy into basketball, every NBA team now has a revenue multiple higher than 10, and the average stands at 11.7—rising from 10.9 last year and from 6.9 over the last decade.
That Forbes list 10 years ago came on the heels of Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers, which at the time was widely seen as a considerable overpay, in large part because no NBA transaction had carried a revenue multiple higher than 5.1 before Ballmer’s deal came in above 15. Even Forbes didn’t entirely buy the math, pegging the Clippers’ value in January 2015 at $1.6 billion on revenue of $146 million, for a multiple of 11; no other team cracked 10 that year.
ow, as the Clippers settle into their new $2 billion arena, the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, their multiple again exceeds 15—only this time, it’s not such an outlier. After spending the past 25 years at what is now known as Crypto.com Arena in Downtown Los Angeles—effectively serving as the building’s third tenant, after the Lakers and the NHL’s Kings—the Clippers are expected to see a massive surge in premium seating and sponsorship revenue, starting with the building’s 23-year naming rights deal for a reported $500 million. (According to Forbes estimates, that $21.7 million annual average is more than $7 million beyond what any other NBA team collected from arena naming rights last season.)
Several other NBA teams are also eyeing new or significantly renovated arenas, and the revenue increase that tends to come with them. The Toronto Raptors’ Scotiabank Arena, for instance, is in the midst of a $350 million upgrade, and Oklahoma City has approved more than $800 million in funding toward a new home for the Thunder. Last week, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., unveiled the financing agreement for the redevelopment of the Wizards’ Capital One Arena.
For one extreme example of the impact a new arena can have, consider the Warriors, the NBA’s most valuable team for the third straight year, who posted an estimated $440 million in local revenue in 2018-19, their last year at Oracle Arena in Oakland. Last season, Golden State racked up more than $700 million in local revenue at its new home, the Chase Center in San Francisco. The club’s total revenue, including central league revenue and netting out arena debt service and revenue sharing, hit $800 million in 2023-24. Only four other teams in the world—the Dallas Cowboys, Real Madrid, Manchester City and Barcelona—have reached that milestone.he growth extends all over the league, however. The NBA recently renewed its uniform and apparel deal with Nike for more money and has added partners in several new categories, including Kendall-Jackson wine and Skims shapewear. The league’s credit is also on solid ground—Fitch Ratings this year affirmed its A- ratings on the NBA’s outstanding debt instruments—and the entry of private equity and other institutional investors, which began in 2020, provides a path to greater liquidity for existing team owners. And the NBA is growing even faster internationally than it is domestically.
