This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
In its fourth league-wide analysis of Major League Soccer, Forbes on Wednesday released its 2016 franchise valuations dissecting earnings from the league, its clubs as well as the highest-paid players.
For the fourth-straight go, the Seattle Sounders are valued as the league's most valuable team at $285 million. The Sounders also made an estimated $52 million in revenue in 2015. Forbes makes its valuation estimates basted on multiple levels of revenue plus projections of future growth in MLS.
According to Forbes, the average MLS team is worth $185 million, which is an estimate up 18 percent from 2015 and a whopping 80 percent from 2013. When Forbes completed its first MLS valuations in 2008, the average MLS club cost $37 million.
Real Salt Lake is listed No. 18 out of the 20 MLS franchises in estimated value. Forbes estimates RSL is worth $125 million while reeling in $24 million in revenue in 2015. In its 2015 evaluation, Forbes had RSL at No. 17 with a value of $108 million and a 2014 revenue of $17 million.
RSL's Rocky Mountain rival, the Colorado Rapids, is at the bottom of Forbes' latest rankings with an estimated worth of $110 million and a 2015 revenue of $16 million.
"If MLS was a publicly traded company, now would be a good time to buy," MLS commissioner Don Garber told Forbes.
The buy-in isn't cheap these days. Mark Abbott, MLS' deputy commissioner, said future expansion fees could reach as high as $200 million for clubs hoping to join the league.
— Christopher Kamrani