NFL Franchise Value CAGR — All 32 Teams

The table

* Two-point CAGR from acquisition price to 2024 Forbes valuation. Excludes owner distributions and subsequent capital contributions (stadium capex, training-facility, adjacent real estate). See caveat below for full methodology.

What the CAGR excludes — and why it matters

The CAGR numbers above are two-point calculations from the family's original acquisition price to the Forbes 2024 valuation. They exclude two material items that would move the true owner-level IRR in opposite directions. First, they exclude every owner distribution the family has taken across the holding period — annual operating profit distributions, PSL cash sweeps, refinancing cash-outs. These would raise the effective return. Second, they exclude every subsequent capital contribution the family has made — stadium capex (SoFi at ~$5.5B, AT&T at ~$1.3B, Highmark at ~$1.7B, U.S. Bank at ~$1.1B), training-facility builds, and adjacent-real-estate development inside the family enterprise. These would lower the effective return. The two effects partially offset, but the direction of the offset varies materially by franchise. Practitioners should not read the headline CAGR as a directly comparable investment return.

The multi-generation NFL families — McCaskey/Bears at 17.4% across 104 years, Rooney/Steelers at 25.1% across 91 years, Mara/Giants at 17.6% across 99 years, Bidwill/Cardinals at 21.2% across 92 years — produce the highest headline CAGRs by virtue of very small original acquisition prices and long holding periods. The effective family return, net of distributions and subsequent capital, is lower. The recent-acquirer CAGRs (Harris/Commanders at 24.0% over one year; Walton-Penner/Broncos at 18.3% over two) are also misleading in the opposite direction: they reflect the recent-transaction premium as bid-ask spreads have widened, not a durable growth rate.

Pending 2025–2026 transactions

Seahawks. The Khosla-led investor group announced a 2025 acquisition of the Paul Allen Trust's controlling interest at an approximate franchise-enterprise value of $6.05 billion (Institute estimate, subject to NFL owner-approval closing).

Raiders. The May 2026 Durban / Meldman / Dell minority-with-succession-option transaction implied a franchise-enterprise value of approximately $6.5 billion — the institutional successor pool priced against the future controlling-interest option.

Both transactions confirm the 2025–2026 market pricing floor for large-market NFL franchises at roughly $6.0–6.5 billion enterprise value — materially above the Forbes 2024 valuations shown in the table above, and consistent with the Broncos 2022 ($4.65B) and Commanders 2023 ($6.05B) precedents.