Forbes released its annual ranking of Major League Baseball team values on Wednesday, with the Toronto Blue Jays coming in at $1.35 billion. That ranks them at No. 16 among all MLB teams, with a four per cent increase in value over last year.
The top valued team? No surprise here: the New York Yankees, worth a whopping $4 billion — a whole billion above the second-ranked team, the Los Angeles Dodgers ($3B). The Chicago Cubs ($2.9B), San Francisco Giants ($2.85B), and Boston Red Sox ($2.8B) round out the top five on the list.
The Yankees brought in $619 million in revenue, which is about 20 per cent more than any other club — including $345 million more than the Blue Jays and $400 million more than the 30th-ranked Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays, by the way, are the only team not to break the billion-dollar plateau in terms of overall value. They’re close, though, ringing in at $900 million.
The Oakland Athletics (No. 26 at $1.02B) saw the biggest jump in value, up 16 per cent over last year. The World Series-winning Houston Astros (No. 11, $1.65B) and Cleveland Indians (No. 24, $1.045B) also saw notable increases in value, up 14 per cent each.
[relatedlinks]