All 30 franchises, ranked on Sportico's MLB Team Values 2026, published March 18, 2026. Every figure carries the date it was measured, not just the date this page was written — and where a transaction has printed since, the transaction is shown next to the estimate. The Institute's plain-English reference for readers who want to understand what Major League Baseball is worth as a business, why regional sports network decline is hitting bottom-half clubs the hardest, and what the record $3.9 billion Padres sale says about the gap between a model and a price.
Source: Sportico, MLB Team Values 2026, by Kurt Badenhausen. Published March 18, 2026. Sportico original article →
What the Institute adds. We save the reader the time to aggregate and check sources — every valuation on this page traces to Sportico with the measurement date printed next to the figure — and we bring an original point of view once the record is on the table. Thirty-one years as a CPA, plus decades as a controller, CFO, and family-office operator, sit behind the read of what the numbers mean for franchise economics, ownership succession, and league-level trends. Aggregation is the floor; the practitioner interpretation is the reason to read us.
What the reader should know — two clocks, not one. The value and year-over-year columns are Sportico's, measured at its March 18, 2026 publication date. This page is current to September 2, 2026, which means every mark below is roughly five and a half months old at its own source. Where a franchise has changed hands since — the Padres, at $3.9 billion — or has agreed to — the Angels, at a reported $4.0 billion — the transaction is shown beside the estimate rather than substituted for it, because an estimate and a negotiated price measure different things. Note the further distinction on the Angels: the Padres figure is a completed and league-approved sale, while the Angels figure is press reporting of a valuation on an agreement that has not closed and whose consideration neither MLB nor either party disclosed. Sportico's total value blends team-level financials with market, ballpark, real-estate and brand value, and includes each club's equal share of MLB Advanced Media and Baseball Endowment LP. These are estimates, not audited disclosures — MLB clubs do not publish audited financial statements.
| # | Team | State / Province | Value Sportico, pub. Mar 18 2026 |
YoY vs Sportico 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York Yankees | New York | $9.40B | +12% |
| 2 | Los Angeles Dodgers | California | $9.05B | +17% |
| 3 | Boston Red Sox | Massachusetts | $6.65B | +10% |
| 4 | Chicago Cubs | Illinois | $6.48B | +14% |
| 5 | San Francisco Giants | California | $4.36B | +4% |
| 6 | Atlanta Braves | Georgia | $4.11B | +11% |
| 7 | Philadelphia Phillies | Pennsylvania | $3.75B | +11% |
| 8 | Houston Astros | Texas | $3.65B | +7% |
| 9 | New York Mets | New York | $3.58B | +15% |
| 10 | San Diego Padres sold at $3.9B, approved Aug 17, 2026 | California | $3.10B | +34% |
| 11 | St. Louis Cardinals | Missouri | $3.03B | +7% |
| 12 | Toronto Blue Jays | Ontario | $2.90B | +21% |
| 13 | Los Angeles Angels agreed Sept 1, 2026 at a reported $4.0B valuation; not yet closed | California | $2.78B | +7% |
| 14 | Texas Rangers | Texas | $2.77B | +12% |
| 15 | Washington Nationals | District of Columbia | $2.31B | +3% |
| 16 | Seattle Mariners | Washington | $2.23B | +14% |
| 17 | Detroit Tigers | Michigan | $2.08B | +20% |
| 18 | Chicago White Sox | Illinois | $2.05B | +1% |
| 19 | Athletics | Nevada | $2.00B | +27% |
| 20 | Milwaukee Brewers | Wisconsin | $1.94B | +19% |
| 21 | Baltimore Orioles | Maryland | $1.91B | +5% |
| 22 | Arizona Diamondbacks | Arizona | $1.82B | +18% |
| 23 | Minnesota Twins | Minnesota | $1.71B | +1% |
| 24 | Tampa Bay Rays | Florida | $1.70B | +26% |
| 25 | Colorado Rockies | Colorado | $1.68B | +13% |
| 26 | Cincinnati Reds | Ohio | $1.67B | +8% |
| 27 | Cleveland Guardians | Ohio | $1.64B | +7% |
| 28 | Kansas City Royals | Missouri | $1.63B | +20% |
| 29 | Pittsburgh Pirates | Pennsylvania | $1.58B | +14% |
| 30 | Miami Marlins | Florida | $1.45B | +12% |
Figures as published by Sportico on March 18, 2026. The 30 values sum to $95.01 billion, an average of $3.17 billion, matching Sportico's own stated league total and average. A note on what is not here: earlier versions of this page carried Revenue and Operating Income columns that were never populated — every cell read “per Forbes.” Sportico does not restate club revenue or operating income in its valuation release, so rather than leave two empty columns advertising data the page did not have, the columns have been removed. They will return only when the Institute can source them club by club with their own measurement date.
The Institute's plain-English read of Sportico's 2026 MLB data, measured March 18, 2026:
1. The whole league is worth about $95 billion. Summing Sportico's 30 franchise valuations produces an aggregate of $95.01 billion, an average of $3.17 billion per club and a 12% year-over-year increase — the largest one-year gain since Sportico began its baseball series in 2021. That growth still trails the other leagues on the multiple that matters: MLB's value-to-revenue multiple of 7.2x sits below the NBA (13.5x), the NFL (10.3x), MLS (9.2x) and the NHL (8.4x). The league's 30 clubs generated an estimated $13.1 billion in 2025, with local cable revenue down roughly 10% as regional sports network economics keep eroding. The collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2026 season.
2. The Yankees have led for six straight years — and the lead has almost vanished. New York holds the top mark at $9.40 billion, but the Dodgers rose 17% to $9.05 billion. In 2021 the Yankees carried a 46% premium over Los Angeles; at the March 18, 2026 measurement date that premium is 4%. The Dodgers generated $1.1 billion in gross revenue in 2025, a threshold previously reached only by the NFL's Dallas Cowboys and LaLiga's Real Madrid, with Shohei Ohtani driving sponsorship revenue above $200 million and Dodger Stadium drawing a franchise-record 4,012,470 fans. On the current trajectory the ranking flips; the only question is when.
3. The Padres printed $3.9 billion — 26% above the estimate that ranked them tenth. This is the single most instructive line on the page. Sportico marked San Diego at $3.10 billion on March 18, 2026, already the league's largest one-year gain at +34%. Five months later, on August 17, 2026, MLB owners unanimously approved the sale of the club to José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones at a $3.9 billion valuation — an MLB record, past the $2.4 billion Steve Cohen paid for the Mets in 2020, and 4.9 times the $800 million the Seidler-led group paid in 2012 (a 12.0% compound annual return over fourteen years). The Institute does not blend the two figures. A model and a price measure different things, and when both exist the reader should see both with their dates attached. What the gap says: published valuation models are lagging the MLB transaction market, and the lag is running in one direction.
4. Ballpark capital is the repeatable lever; RSN exposure is the repeatable drag. Toronto rose 21% to $2.90 billion after a $300 million Rogers Centre renovation — the clearest single-cause move in the set. The rest of the top of the growth table is thinner and more mixed: the Athletics at +27% on a relocation story with no permanent home yet, Tampa Bay at +26% off the lowest base in the league. At the bottom of the growth table sit clubs with the least revenue certainty: the White Sox and Twins each at +1%, the Nationals at +3%. Local media is what separates them. Diamond Sports Group's Bally Sports bankruptcy pushed a dozen clubs onto lower-revenue direct-to-consumer distribution, and the step-down is visible in the smaller-market marks.
5. The spread from top to bottom is now 6.5 to 1, and it is widening. The Yankees at $9.40 billion are worth 6.5 times the Marlins at $1.45 billion. Four clubs clear $4 billion; ten sit below $1.75 billion. In the NFL — where national media and revenue sharing dominate the model — the same top-to-bottom ratio is roughly 2.1 to 1. That difference is the whole argument of the 2026 labor negotiation in one number: baseball's value is concentrated in local revenue that the league does not equalize, and the clubs on the wrong side of that concentration are the ones with the least to lose from a stoppage.
6. Two weeks after the Padres closed, the Angels agreed at a reported $4.0 billion — and the gap to the model is wider still. On September 1, 2026 Arte Moreno agreed to sell a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Angels to Stan Kroenke's Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. Sportico marked the club at $2.78 billion on March 18, 2026 and ranked it thirteenth; the reported valuation sits 44% above that mark, against the Padres' 26%. Read the two together and finding 3 stops being about San Diego. It is a market condition: published models are lagging MLB's transaction market, the lag is one-directional, and it is widening. Three cautions belong on this figure and the Institute states all three. The transaction has not closed — approval by the other Major League clubs is expected in the first quarter of 2027. Neither MLB nor either party disclosed the consideration, so the $4.0 billion is press reporting sourced to people familiar with the deal, not a disclosed price. And what it describes is a valuation placed on a controlling interest, with Moreno reported to retain an undisclosed minority, rather than the cash that changes hands. On the reported number it would surpass the Padres as the largest transaction in MLB history and tie the Phoenix Suns and Mercury for eighth among all North American franchise sales — and it would mark Moreno's 2003 purchase from The Walt Disney Company, reported in the range of $180 million to $183.5 million, as a compounding of roughly 14.4% a year across twenty-three years. A franchise-value return, not an operating one: the Angels have not reached a postseason since 2014.
The Baratelli Institute does not produce original MLB franchise valuations. Forbes does that, Sportico does that, Sports Business Journal does that. We aggregate what those sources publish into a single reference destination and then bring a practitioner's read to what the numbers mean — how franchise valuations connect to family-office capital structure, how arena and stadium deals interact with municipal bond markets, how media rights economics compare across leagues, and how ownership succession is playing out at individual clubs.
Every number on this page traces to a filed or published source and carries its own measurement date. Sportico's MLB Team Values 2026, published March 18, 2026, is the primary source for the value, rank and year-over-year columns. Where a control transaction has printed since that date it is shown alongside, dated, and never blended in. Historical valuations trace to Forbes' and Sportico's annual publications. Where per-team pages include salary cap detail, they source from Over The Cap, Spotrac, or PuckPedia with the reference date noted. Where we discuss ownership, we source from public filings, press disclosures, and the ownership family's own communications. Where we discuss arena or stadium economics, we source from municipal bond issuances, lease agreements filed with local governments, and league-published revenue-sharing formulas.
The reader who wants a specialist's read on any single team should start here, then read the primary sources and the team's local press coverage. We are a starting point that saves the reader the time to aggregate the field — and a practitioner voice once the record is on the table.
Primary source: Sportico, MLB Team Values 2026, by Kurt Badenhausen. Published March 18, 2026. Sportico original →
Institute contribution: aggregation into a single reference destination, plain-English read of what the ranking means, cross-references to case studies, ownership and arena/stadium context, cross-league benchmarking.
Corroborating sources: the 30-club Sportico list as syndicated by RealGM (March 18, 2026) and Bleacher Report (March 18, 2026), which agree with each other and with Sportico's stated $95 billion league total and $3.17 billion average; CNBC's independent MLB valuations (March 13, 2026) and Forbes' (March 20, 2026), which are not blended into the table above and disagree with Sportico materially — CNBC marks the Yankees at $9.0B and Forbes at $8.5B against Sportico's $9.40B; MLB owner approval of the Padres sale (August 17, 2026); league revenue-sharing disclosures; individual club press releases.
Refresh cadence: annual, following Sportico's publication, which has run in mid-to-late March each year. Read the gap, don't ignore it: the table above is measured March 18, 2026; this page is current to August 31, 2026. Roughly five months separate the two, and in that window one club changed hands 26% above its published mark. Sportico publishes each league on its own clock — NFL on August 12, 2026, MLB on March 18, 2026, NBA on October 16, 2025, NHL in early October 2025 — so cross-league comparisons on this site are never same-date comparisons and are labeled accordingly. Read every figure against the date printed with it, not against the date at the top of the page.
Editorial disclosure: the Institute has no financial relationship with any MLB franchise, Forbes, Sportico, or any other data source referenced. Published as an educational reference. Not investment advice.