The NHL is one of the most valuable sports on the planet when it comes to valuable franchises. The sale of jerseys, licensing and more all add up to create some staggering figures. These teams are more than just sports teams—they’re full-blown businesses, with figures some of the big tech companies would be jealous of.
The latest figures have just been released and the most valuable team may just surprise you. Let’s take a look at some of the most valuable franchise teams in the NHL.
Most valuable NHL teams
Sportico, a trusted sports business news site, recently announced its valuations of different NHL teams and the winner hasn’t budged from last year – the Maple Leafs.
The Maple Leafs are worth an eye-watering $2.12 billion, which makes them the most valuable team in the NHL. They’ve seen a six percent rise on the year, which would make them a solid investment if they were a stock!
The Toronto-based team came in a solid $110 million more than the second-place team, the New York Rangers, who themselves are worth $2 billion. Whilst this isn’t quite enough to place them first, it’s still up seven per cent from last year.
Next up in third place were the Montreal Canadiens, who also saw an increase of seven per cent and are currently valued at around $1.7 billion.
Continuing the top five, in fourth place are the Chicago Blackhawks, worth $1.44 billion, and the Boston Bruins who have been valued at $1.41 billion. Both of these teams saw their valuations increase by eight per cent over last year. This top five list is actually the same as last year—even with the increases in valuation.
This list of the most valuable franchises is unsurprisingly a majority of the team in the Original Six, which includes the teams which are considered “big market” such as the Canadian clubs that are based in the ice hockey hotpots of Montreal and Toronto.
The other team that’s missing from the Original Six is the Red Wings of Detroit. They came ranked ninth, valued at $1.12 billion which is a nine per cent increase from last year.
The rest of the teams based in Canada rank as follows:
The Edmonton Oilers: Ranked eighth overall with a valuation of $1.29 billion.
The Vancouver Canucks: Ranked 11th overall with a valuation of $1 billion.
The Calgary Flames: Ranked 19th overall with a valuation of $870 million.
The Winnipeg Jets: Ranked 22nd overall with a valuation of $805 million.
Finally, the Ottawa Senators: ranked 27th overall with a valuation of $655 million.
The Ottawa Senators is an interesting case. The owners have recently acquired the services of a bank to explore the avenues of possibly selling the team, They saw the biggest percentage growth over last year. Their valuation grew a huge 21 per cent in the last 12 months—could this be one of the reasons they’re thinking about the sale?
In terms of the biggest variation in terms of valuation, it comes from the teams who are unfortunately at the bottom of the pile. The Florida Panthers, who are sitting in the number 31 slot, are worth a whopping 130 million dollars more than the last ranked team, the Arizona Coyotes.
Even with this huge growth—with some teams like the Senators seeing double-digit growth—the NHL is falling behind other sports in America. The other top 3 North American sports associations – the NBA, the NFL and the MLB are all driving more growth than the NHL.
How the valuation is worked out
Each time is valued on the information that is publicly available to Sportico as well as financial records. People with insider knowledge of the finances of each time are also interviewed, including different sports bankers and even some lawyers who are actively working on transactions for different NHL teams.
On average, NHL teams are valued at five times their revenue. To compare that to other big sports, the NFL franchises get valued at 7.6 times their revenue, NBA is valued at 8.4 times their revenue and the MLB gets a 7.4 times multiplier for working out valuations.
