As sports fans, we devote large chunks of our time to following our favorite teams. We know trivial details about players, owners, and the latest stadium upgrades. We marvel at the good fortune of those who are able to capitalize on the sports industry. If only we could actually catch a ball or have enough resources to buy a team. Then we, too, could move from the consumer side to the other side. It’s big business, after all. Or is it? Just how wealthy are the wealthiest sports leagues? And how do their teams compare to other relatively anonymous businesses?
The Leagues
The wealthiest sports league in the world is the National Football League (NFL), generating somewhere in the range of $16 billion of revenue per year in non-pandemic times. Major League Baseball comes in at number two, pulling in around $10 billion of revenue per year, and the National Basketball Association lands at number three with about $8 billion annually. Some sources list the Indian Premier League (cricket) at number four with $6.8 billion of revenue per year. The world’s wealthiest soccer league is the English Premier League, finding itself at number five with an annual revenue of perhaps $6 billion. Not too shabby, right? Well that depends on your perspective.
The Comparison
The Fortune 500 is a ranking of America’s largest companies that, when viewed through the lens of revenue, can provide some key insight. Number one on the list is Walmart with an annual revenue of $523 billion, or 32 times that of the NFL. Number two is Amazon with $280 billion, followed by Exxon Mobil at $264 billion and Apple at $260 billion. Lower down the list is Publix Super Markets, which at $38 billion of annual revenue still dwarfs the NFL, as does Dollar General with a yearly figure of $27 billion.
Bringing the analysis down to an individual team level can be even more eye opening. The Green Bay Packers of the NFL have an annual revenue of about $506.9 million. That’s ten times less than number 500 on the Fortune 500. A brief list of private companies that have about four times the annual revenue of the Packers ($2 billion) includes the following non-household names: Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Johnson Brothers Liquors; Swagelok; and McWane.
At the end of the day, name recognition and visibility do not necessarily correlate to revenue generating capability. In other words, even though we’re way more likely to obsess over the Buffalo Bills than McWane, from a business standpoint, McWane would be the preferable obsession. But most of us don’t need to worry about all that. When it comes to sports, we’re just the consumer.
