Forbes to Vikings: You're Still Worthless

It should be a great time to be a Vikings fan. The team's season opener on the not so frozen tundra of Lambeau Field was far from disastrous. They lost, but didn't play dreadfully. The season looks to be a pretty good one for the Vikes, with several pigskin pundits saying they could even reach the Super Bowl for the first time since 1977. Owner Zygi Wilf finally starting throwing some of his real estate fortune around to attract top players. By all accounts the Vikings should be riding high. Don't get to excited, the accountants are here to rain on the Purple parade. Forbes magazine this week came out with its new rankings of NFL team's worth, and the Vikings are in the cellar for the second year in row.

Weighing in at a value of $839 million, the Vikes are worth just over half of the No. 1 Dallas Cowboys. America's Team is worth an astounding $1.612 billion, and the magazine writes that it is the most valuable sports franchise in the world. So what exactly makes a team that hasn't won a playoff game since 1996 worth so much money? Forbes chalks it up to owner Jerry Jones and the new stadium the Cowboys will move into come the 2009 season.

Architects in Texas are still struggling to master roof construction.

To hear Forbes tell it, the value of all NFL franchises rides on the building they call home. This new Cowboys field will seat 80,000 and comes with luxury suites that will fetch leases costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Vikings on the other hand, have the Metrodome, which probably isn't the worst stadium in the league, but, as the article notes, offers few ways to jump start their revenue flow. A new stadium with public funding seems off the table for the moment as the state legislature has been focusing on things besides billion dollar football stadiums.

And there are a few quirky things worth noting about the list:

Brett Favre is worth almost as much as a Super Bowl victory:

You could call Favre the league's Most Valuable Player before week two even begins. Not for his mediocre play during his Jets debut in Miami, but for the greenbacks he brings his new team. The New York Giants and Jets are Nos. 3 and four respectively in the list at $1.178 and $1.170 billion. The teams are going in halvsies on an expensive new stadium, so it would make sense that they are close in the list, but only separated by a measly $8 mil? The Giants are the defending Super Bowl champs for crying out loud! The appeal of Favre really is almost as valuable.

The Wealthiest League in the World:
Reuters crunched the numbers and the average team value is over $1 billion dollars. I Crunched some numbers of my own and found that you could have the top three valued NHL franchises or the lowest valued six teams for about the average of one NFL team.

Playoff Success Doesn't Necessarily Matter When Valuing a Team:

Although the top ten most valuable teams include Super Bowl champions New England, Indianapolis, and the Giants, some perennial losers also cracked to top of the list. No. 1 Dallas hasn't won a playoff game in more than a decade, the No. 6 Houston Texans have yet to make a playoff appearance, and the No.3 Washington Redskins have two playoff victories in the last 16 seasons. While consistent contenders Pittsburgh Steelers are ranked 18th and the Seattle Seahawks--who have made the playoffs five consecutive years and have won playoff games three years running--are stuck at 19th place.