The Maple Leafs are the most valuable franchise in the NHL for second-straight year
Photo credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
According to Sportico, which is a “high quality digital content company providing sports industry breaking news, data, information, strategies, leadership and insight,” Toronto sits in top spot, valued at $2.12 billion.
That’s $110 million more than what the New York Rangers are worth ($2.01 billion).
This new valuation puts the Maple Leafs up 6% from last year, when they were valued at $2 billion. It was the first time ever that an NHL club was valued at over $2 billion.
Every Original Six team made it into the top-10 this year — Toronto being the most valuable and Detroit being the least valuable ($1.12 billion). In order, it goes Toronto, New York, the Montreal Canadiens ($1.7 billion), the Chicago Blackhawks ($1.44 billion, the Boston Bruins ($1.41 billion), and again, the Red Wings.
The L.A. Kings ($1.39 billion, Philadelphia Flyers ($1.35 billion, Edmonton Oilers ($1.29 billion), and Washington Capitals ($1.22 billion) round out the top-10.
According to Sportico, the Maple Leafs have the highest media and sponsor revenue in the NHL. That includes the arena naming rights deal with Scotiabank, which brings in $30 million each year.
The report also projects that Toronto will make a gross revenue of $300 million this year, with a full season of having fans back in the building. This amount also includes 50% of the revenue from events that aren’t the NHL or NBA.
Although being valued the highest, Toronto didn’t have the top revenue in the NHL for the 2021-22 season. That title was given to the New York Rangers, who Sportico says made more than $30 million in revenue alone by advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals last season.
It’s clear that if Toronto does something similar to New York this year, there’s a lot of money to be had.
The average NHL club is worth $1.01 billion, getting over the 10-figure mark for the first time ever, according to Sportico. Each NHL team has an average revenue of $192 million, which has them ranked behind each of the NFL ($545 million), MLB ($313 million), and NBA (308 million).
In the bottom spot is MLS, where each team averages a revenue of $57 million. However, MLS sits atop the five leagues for “Average Value-to-Revenue Multiple” at 10.2%. The NHL is last in this category with an Average Value-to-Revenue Multiple of 5.3%.
The full value of all 32 NHL teams, which includes, “ownerships’ stakes in real estate, venues, TV networks and team-related holdings,” is $32.4 billion.
