For the 30th straight year, the Dallas Cowboys will be stuck at home on Super Bowl Sunday. But even when victories are hard to come by on the field, owner Jerry Jones keeps piling up financial wins.

The Cowboys, the world’s most valuable sports team, worth $13 billion, are also the most profitable franchise, racking up an estimated $629 million last season in operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). That total put America’s Team more than $200 million ahead of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors—No. 2 among the most profitable franchises with an estimated $409 million in EBITDA last season—and nearly $400 million ahead of any other team.

In fact, among the 211 franchises that Forbes valued in 2025 across 13 leagues, only 28 generated more in revenue than the Cowboys made in operating income during the most recent season with available data.

Together, the world’s 20 most profitable teams hauled in $4.5 billion in EBITDA, or an average of $226 million, up 16% from the previous year’s $3.9 billion and $195 million. Once again, the NFL leads the way with seven franchises ranked, followed by the NBA with six, but it is a closer split than last year, when the list of 20 teams featured nine from the NFL and five from the NBA. The NHL and the Premier League each have three clubs represented this year while one Formula 1 team makes the cut.

A generation ago, sports franchises were not necessarily expected to stay in the black, and team owners typically made their money whenever they eventually decided to sell their stakes. Even today, profitability is not a given: Among the 185 men’s sports teams valued by Forbes in 2025, an estimated 37 failed to reach break-even, including 16 clubs from MLS and 11 from MLB. The New York Mets, for example, lost an astonishing $268 million in 2024, according to Forbes estimates, in large part because of massive luxury-tax penalties imposed by the........

© Forbes