About this chart race
In 2010 the most valuable sports team on earth was Manchester United, at $1.83 billion, with the Dallas Cowboys second on $1.65bn and the New York Yankees third on $1.60bn. Three of that top ten were football clubs: United, Real Madrid sixth on $1.32bn and Arsenal eighth on $1.18bn.
Real Madrid took the lead in 2013 on $3.30bn and held it for three lists. Then the Cowboys arrived: $4.00 billion in 2016, the first team from outside football to top the ranking, and they have not been passed in any list since — ten straight years at number one, ending this race at $13 billion. That is 7.9 times what the same franchise was worth in 2010.
The football clubs did not shrink, they were simply outrun. Real Madrid went from $1.32bn to $6.75bn and Manchester United from $1.83bn to $6.60bn, both more than tripling. But in the 2025 ranking only four football clubs make the world's top 50 at all — Real Madrid 20th, Manchester United 24th, Barcelona 42nd and Liverpool 48th — while 30 of the 50 are NFL franchises. The 2010 leaderboard was a football list with American teams on it; the 2025 one is the reverse.
The figures are Forbes' own annual valuations. As a check, the 50 teams in the 2025 ranking sum to $353bn, an average of $7.1bn each, which matches the totals Forbes published with that list. Two values circulating for 2025 — a $15.5bn Cowboys and a $12.5bn Lakers — did not match Forbes' own article and are corrected here to $13bn and $10bn. Years before 2017 list only the top ten, so a team outside it that year has no published value rather than a zero.
Two franchises are shown under their current names throughout, because Forbes ranks the franchise rather than the name: the Washington Commanders appear as such from 2010 even though they were the Redskins until 2022, and the Las Vegas Raiders likewise carry their post-2020 name.
This animated ranking shows how team value changed across 21 series between 2010 and 2025. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2025, Dallas Cowboys leads with 13.00 USD billion.
Included in this race
Dallas Cowboys, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Rams, New York Giants, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Yankees, Chicago Bears, New York Jets, Las Vegas Raiders, Washington Commanders, Houston Texans, Los Angeles Dodgers, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Arsenal.
Source
Data from Forbes annual rankings. Every figure shown comes from this source — nothing is estimated or generated.
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