While the Philadelphia 76ers got all of the press this year with their record-tying 26-game losing streak, the Milwaukee Bucks quietly ended up blowing out the competition for worst team in the NBA finishing 15-67, fully 4 games worse than the hapless 76ers.
So what kind of reward does owner Herb Kohl get for guiding his team to NBA ignominy? Try $550 million, the price tag announced today as Kohl sold the team to New York investment firm executives Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens.
In other news, it was widely reported last week that in the latest government data on college athletic programs, the University of Alabama athletic department generated more revenue than every NHL team and 26 of 30 NBA teams.
So, here is an interesting thought experiment: if the University of Alabama football team, which finished with only 4 fewer wins than the Bucks despite playing 68 fewer games, were a regular sports franchise, what would it sell for?
Of the $143 million in revenues generated by the athletic department, the football team is directly responsible for $88.7 million. The Bucks just sold for 5.05 times their annual revenue. Using this multiplier would put a value of roughly $450 million on the Crimson Tide football team. Revenue to market value numbers for other teams in the the NBA and NFL run between 3.2 and 5.2.
Of course, Alabama has another thing going for it as well. While Kohl had to pay his players about $54 million this season to generate those 15 wins and their corresponding $109 million in revenue, the Crimson Tide only incurred $2.2 million in player payroll expenses. In total, the school spent only $41.6 million on football, generating a profit of $47.1 million. On average, NBA and NFL teams at valued at 26.6 times their annual profits in the Forbes rankings. Using this multiplier, the Alabama football team would go for $1.253 billion, making it the 13th most valuable franchise in the US. By contrast, the endowment of the entire University of Alabama system in 2013 was $1.055 billion.
(Thanks to Josh Congdon-Hohman for the idea.)
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