The Cincinnati Bengals are ranked No. 32 in the NFL by Forbes in franchise evaluation
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The Cincinnati Bengals are ranked No. 32 in the NFL by Forbes in franchise evaluation
The Cincinnati Bengals have pulled off a four-peat and it’s not even making headline news. For the fourth straight year, the Bengals have been ranked dead last in the NFL by Forbes magazine in terms of franchise value at $5.25 billion.
This comes just two weeks after a Sportico report that also ranked the Bengals as 32nd in the league, but they were a little more generous with a $5.5 billion assessment. So no, the Forbes listing doesn’t seem like a clerical error.
But, fear not Brown family, you’re still sitting on a cash cow. According to Forbes, the NFL’s ever-escalating media deals make all NFL franchises cash cows that eat 14 bacon-covered donuts for breakfast every morning.
“The lure of NFL ownership starts with the league’s national media deals, which took effect in 2022 and 2023 and locked in $125.5 billion in revenue over the next decade,” Justin Teitelbaum and Brett Knight write. “But many around the sport expect that number to end up considerably higher because the league can opt out of most of its agreements in 2029 and secure even better rates, capitalizing on the success the NBA had negotiating an 11-year, $76 billion package with Amazon, ESPN and NBC last year.
“The NFL also moved this month to acquire a 10% stake in ESPN in exchange for the NFL Network and other media assets, including the TV rights to the RedZone channel.”
Cleveland writer revels in the misfortunes of the Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals play the Cleveland Browns in Week 1 of the season coming up and Tim Bielik of Cleveland.com has been examining the matchup. This franchise-valuation nugget made its way into a Friday morning column and you get the sense that there was a touch of schadenfreude regarding the Browns’ cross-state rivals.
“Despite on-field success, the Cincinnati Bengals remain the NFL’s least valuable franchise for the fourth straight year, valued at $5.25 billion according to Forbes’ 2025 rankings,” Bielik wrote. “While that’s still enough to surpass all NHL teams and most NBA and MLB franchises, it’s less than half the Dallas Cowboys’ league-leading $10.1 billion valuation. Kaycee Sloan noted the Bengals’ operating income dropped to $50 million, down $26 million from last year.”
For what it’s worth, the Browns are 18th on this list and you can give every ounce of credit to their fans. That is a tortured fan base who continues to come back every year and spend money on a team that seems to enjoy kicking them in the teeth with an iron boot.
The Cincinnati Bengals are in a smaller market than you think
When I first read the Sportico valuations a couple of weeks ago, I looked up cities and market sizes because I’m so ridiculously thorough that I went the extra step of using Google. What I found was quite stunning.
Do you know where Cincinnati ranks in size in the United States? I didn’t. 66th. They have two major sports franchises and a college no one watches unless their basketball team has Nick Van Exel or Kenyon Martin (stop it, you never knew who the Kelce brothers were until they went to the NFL).
66th seems unbelievably low, especially when Jacksonville is 10th. C’mon, you didn’t know that. No one would guess that (Meaning I didn’t guess that). That said, the Jacksonville Jaguars are still No. 28 in the league in franchise value, which makes them even sadder than the Bengals. They have to play 12 games a year in Uganda just to climb out of the basement because no one will watch them locally.
The full Forbes list is right here.