Baseball’s Most Valuable Teams 2023: Price Tags Are Up 12% Despite Regional TV Woes

The average MLB team value is up 12% this year, to $2.32 billion. During the 2022 season, revenue (net of stadium debt service) increased 7.8%, to an all-time high of $10.3 billion. The top-line gain was driven by a 64% increase in ticket revenue (including postseason and spring training), to $2.4 billion (the 2021 season started with nearly all ballparks under capacity restrictions) and a 35% increase in premium seating (suites and club seating) revenue, to $$1.16 billion. But operating income (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) came in at an average of $17.7 million per team, down 20% from the previous season as player costs (salaries, bonuses and benefits) rose 13%, to $5.2 billion, and an increase in SG&A expenses.

Among the league’s 30 teams, geography and regional sports network economics played pivotal roles in our valuations, especially with the recent bankruptcy filing of Diamond Sports Group, which has the local media rights to 14 of MLB’s 30 teams. The Angels benefit from being in southern California—where, like in New York, Chicago and Boston, buyers are willing to play a premium price—and are televised on Diamond Sports Group’s Bally Sports West, a profitable RSN that’s unlikely to cut its $112 million rights fee to the team when it emerges from bankruptcy.