Money

Ranked: The Most Expensive Sports Team Sales in History

Published

2 years ago

April 22, 2023

Sam Parker

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Jenna Ross

The ten most expensive professional sports team sales shown as sized bubbles. The Washington Commanders sale is number one at $6.1 billion.

Ranking the Biggest Sports Team Sales in History

After a record-setting year in 2022, professional sports team sales are on an uptick yet again.

The tentative $6.05 billion Washington Commanders sale, already approved by other NFL owners, will be the highest amount paid for a sports team once completed.

This graphic from Sam Parker shows how the Commanders’ April 2023 deal measures up against the biggest sports team sales in history, using data from the Wall Street Journal and CBS Sports.

Washington Commanders Sale vs. Other Franchise Fortunes

Valuations have become significantly larger in the last couple of years, with the largest sales all occurring after 2010. Here are the 10 most highly-priced sales for a professional sports team franchise globally.

Rank	Team	Price	Year of Sale
1	🏈 Washington Commanders	$6.1B	2023
2	⚽ Chelsea Football Club	$5.3B	2022
3	🏈 Denver Broncos	$4.7B	2022
4	🏀 Phoenix Suns	$4.0B	2023
5	🏀 Milwaukee Bucks	$3.5B	2023
6	⚾ New York Mets	$2.4B	2020
7	🏀 Brooklyn Nets	$2.4B	2019
8	🏈 Carolina Panthers	$2.2B	2018
9	🏀 Houston Rockets	$2.2B	2017
10	⚾ Los Angeles Dodgers	$2.0B	2012

The Washington Commanders sale takes the top spot at $6.1 billion, even though it could still be de-throned. It’s been reported that a $7 billion dollar bid for the team is still in play as well.

Dan Snyder, the current owner of the team, is one of the world’s richest people in sports. He purchased the team for $800 million in 1999 and, if the $6.1 billion sale completes, will have made a cumulative return of over 650%.

Chelsea Football Club is the only non-U.S. sale on the list. The sports team was previously owned by Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch who was subject to sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was forced to sell the team.

Hedge fund billionaire Todd Boehly, who was part of the consortium that purchased Chelsea, is also part owner of number 10 on the list: the LA Dodgers. Boehly is said to have helped with one of the “most dramatic turnarounds in North American sports” through his purchase of the Dodgers in 2012 for $2.0 billion, with the team wining the MLB World Series in 2020.

Will any sale top the Washington Commanders number? NFL teams specifically are some of the world’s most valuable teams, so the sale of a team such as the Dallas Cowboys or Los Angeles Rams could be worth more.

Other competition could come from soccer teams, including Chelsea rivals Manchester United or Liverpool. Manchester United’s owners put the club up for sale in 2022, hoping for a valuation of £5 billion to £6 billion ($6.2 billion to $7.5 billion).

Why Are Sports Team Sale Prices So High?

Sports teams haven’t always collected such sky-high prices like the Washington Commanders sale. In fact, sports teams used to be the investment of choice for eccentric entrepreneurs and were considered money-losing propositions.

So what’s changed? There are a number of factors driving high valuations and passionate interest from billionaires:

Media deals: Digitization means sports now have a global audience, and broadcast rights have become a major driver of leagues’ revenue growth. For example, the NFL has $115 billion in long-term media rights deals with major TV networks, Amazon, and Google’s YouTube TV.
Industry monopoly: There were once a handful of professional baseball leagues, but Major League Baseball earned an exemption from antitrust (pro-competition) laws in 1922. Other sports leagues have conglomerated to become the biggest and best representatives of their sport, making it nearly impossible for new entrants to compete.
League benefits: Contracts negotiated at a league level are equally split between every league’s sports team. The Packers, the only NFL team with public financial statements, earned 60% of their income from national sources in 2022. Most leagues also have salary caps which limit player costs.
Favorable Taxes: In 2004, the U.S. federal government introduced a rule allowing sports team owners to write off most of their purchase price against team profits over 15 years.

Beyond these factors, perhaps the biggest driver of sports team value is the prestige associated with owning one.

“Sports teams are a bit of a vanity asset, like owning a Picasso, and the highest bidder is going to be a very rich person who wants to own the team so they (can) call themselves an owner of a sports team.” — Stephen Dodson, Portfolio Manager of Bretton Fund

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Wealth

Mapped: How State Income Taxes Have Changed Since 2000

We look at how state income taxes have changed since 2000 by comparing differences in the top marginal rate for each state.

Published

9 hours ago

March 25, 2025

Pallavi Rao

This cropped graphic looks at how state income taxes have changed by measuring the difference in the top marginal rate between 2000 and 2025.

Mapped: How State Income Taxes Have Changed Since 2000

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

Twenty-three states reduced their top marginal income tax rate since 2000.
Two states removed income taxes entirely, joining six others that do not tax incomes.
Thirteen states increased their top rate.
Two made no changes, and data cannot be compared for four states.

In this graphic we compare how the state income taxes have changed between 2000 and 2025. The visualized value is the difference in the top marginal tax rate, measured in percentage points (pp).

We also published just the current top rate in 2025, earlier this month for further context.

Current and historical data for this map is sourced from the Tax Foundation and Tax Policy Center.

Changes are not compared for four states—Rhode Island, Vermont, North Dakota, and Colorado—since their 2000s tax rates were charged as a percentage of federal liabilities owed.

As a result, they have been grayed out on the map and are not discussed in this article.

States Income Tax Burdens Have Broadly Fallen Since 2000

Led by Iowa (-5.18pp), 23 states reduced their top marginal income tax rate since 2000.

Furthermore, two states (Tennessee and New Hampshire) removed income taxes entirely, joining six others that do not tax incomes.

State	Code	2000 Top Rate	2025 Top Rate	Change
Alabama	AL	5.0	5.0	No change
Alaska	AK	0.0	0.0	No income tax
Arizona	AZ	5.0	2.5	-2.54 pp
Arkansas	AR	7.0	3.9	-3.10 pp
California	CA	9.3	13.3	+4.00 pp
Colorado	CO	% of federal liability	4.4	n/a
Connecticut	CT	4.5	7.0	+2.50 pp
Delaware	DE	6.4	6.6	+0.20 pp
Florida	FL	0.0	0.0	No income tax
Georgia	GA	6.0	5.4	-0.61 pp
Hawaii	HI	8.8	11.0	+2.25 pp
Idaho	ID	8.2	5.7	-2.50 pp
Illinois	IL	3.0	5.0	+1.95 pp
Indiana	IN	3.4	3.0	-0.40 pp
Iowa	IA	9.0	3.8	-5.18 pp
Kansas	KS	6.5	5.6	-0.85 pp
Kentucky	KY	6.0	4.0	-2.00 pp
Louisiana	LA	6.0	3.0	-3.00 pp
Maine	ME	8.5	7.2	-1.35 pp
Maryland	MD	4.8	5.8	+0.90 pp
Massachusetts	MA	12.0	9.0	-3.00 pp
Michigan	MI	4.4	4.3	-1.10 pp
Minnesota	MN	8.0	9.9	+1.85 pp
Mississippi	MS	5.0	4.4	-0.60 pp
Missouri	MO	6.0	4.7	-1.30 pp
Montana	MT	11.0	5.9	-5.10 pp
Nebraska	NE	6.7	5.2	-1.48 pp
Nevada	NV	0.0	0.0	No income tax
New Hampshire	NH	5.0	0.0	No income tax
New Jersey	NJ	6.4	10.8	+4.38 pp
New Mexico	NM	8.2	5.9	-2.30 pp
New York	NY	6.9	10.9	+4.05 pp
North Carolina	NC	7.8	4.3	-3.50 pp
North Dakota	ND	% of federal liability	2.5	n/a
Ohio	OH	7.2	3.5	-3.70 pp
Oklahoma	OK	6.8	4.8	-2.00 pp
Oregon	OR	9.0	9.9	+0.90 pp
Pennsylvania	PA	2.8	3.1	+0.27 pp
Rhode Island	RI	% of federal liability	5.99	n/a
South Carolina	SC	7.0	6.2	-0.80 pp
South Dakota	SD	0.0	0.0	No income tax
Tennessee	TN	6.0	0.0	No income tax
Texas	TX	0.0	0.0	No income tax
Utah	UT	7.0	4.6	-2.45 pp
Vermont	VT	% of federal liability	8.75	n/a
Virginia	VA	5.8	5.8	No change
Washington	WA	0.0	7.0	+7.00 pp
West Virginia	WV	6.5	4.8	-1.68 pp
Wisconsin	WI	6.8	7.7	+0.88 pp
Wyoming	WY	0.0	0.0	No income tax

Note: Washington’s 7% tax on capital gains has been listed as an income tax by the source. This is discussed further in the next section.

Many states have switched to flat tax rates in the past 25 years, with Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Utah reducing both the rate and multiple brackets to just the one.

However, some argue that flat rates are regressive as it imposes a larger burden on low income households than higher incomes ones.

Only two states, Alabama and Virginia, have made no changes.

So, Who Increased Their Tax Rates?

Thirteen states and D.C. increased the top rate, with Washington (+7.0 pp) registering the most increase.

However Washington’s 7% flat rate is only applicable for earnings from stocks and bond sales that are above $250,000.

There is an argument that a capital gains tax is different from an income tax since it requires both a sale and declared profit to incur the tax. Furthermore, as far back as 1933, a statewide income tax in Washington was ruled unconstitutional.

However, to stay consistent with the source’s categories, it has been included as income. New Hampshire’s removal of interest and dividends tax is also counted as eliminating income taxes.

If not considering Washington, then New Jersey has seen the highest top rate increase (+4.38pp).

Finally, Massachusetts is the only state that switched from flat to marginal rates: putting in a 9% bracket for income above $1.8 million in a year.