4 Newcomers to the Forbes Most Valuable Sports Brand List

Once a year, Forbes comes out with its “Fab 40,” a list of the world’s most valuable sports brands. The list is split into four categories with their own qualifications for what numbers and figures contribute to overall value: athletes, businesses, events, and teams. This year, each category is led, respectively, by Lebron James (who dethroned Tiger Woods), Nike NKE, the Super Bowl, and the New York Yankees.

This year, each of the four categories features a prominent newcomer.

Rafael Nadal

For the individual athlete category, Forbes measures the brand value endorsement income minus the average endorsement income of the top 10 athletes in the sport (they did not specify how they determined the top 10 athletes). Anyway, Rafa squeezed in at #10 with a brand value of $10 million.

This is a testament to Nadal’s stature as one of the best players on the tour: though he made it to the final of the Australian Open in January (he was beat by Stanislas Wawrinka) and handily won the French Open in June (beating Novak Dkokovic in four sets to win his incredible 9th French Open title), in July, he was ousted from Wimbledon in the fourth round by the young, Australian up-and-comer Nick Kyrgios, and because of a wrist injury, he didn’t even play in New York City’s own US Open in August and September. All this being said, the Spainiard’s brand is apparently strong as ever, and he is still the ATP #2 player in the world, behind Novak and one spot ahead of Roger Federer. Incidentally, Roger, whose brand presence and recognition is unparalleled in the tennis world, beat Rafa on Forbes’ list, coming in at #3.

Los Angeles Lakers

For the brand value of teams, Forbes found the portion of a team’s “enterprise value that is not attributable to the size of demographics of its market or league-shared revenue.” As such, the LA Lakers fit the bill for 2014, coming in at #10 with a brand value of $254 million (up from $145 million last year). Its addition to the list reflects the 20-year, $3.6 billion TV deal the team signed with Time Warner Cable TWC, which launched during the 2012-2013 season.

The Lakers have also struggled as of late, with the five championships they won between 2000 and 2010 serving to remind them they can do better. Last season marked the first time that the team missed the NBA playoffs since 2005, and the second time in the last 20 years. As if that weren’t troubling enough, at the end of the season, head coach Mike D’Antoni resigned after the Lakers’ 27 win, 55 loss season.

But, with their new TWC deal, the capital that brings, the strength of their brand, and new had coach Bryan Scott (a former player), the 2014-2015 season may be seen as a new beginning for the Lakers.

UFC

For business brands, Forbes subtracted the enterprise value that a typical industry peer of equal size would sell for from the estimated enterprise value that the company itself would sell for in a transaction in which the buyer and seller act independently and have no relationship with each other (phew). With this metric, Ultimate Fighting Championship joined the list at #10 with a 2014 brand value of $440 million.

The company is the world’s largest promoter of mixed martial arts (MMA) fights and events. In 2012, Dana White, the President of UFC, made a big, bold statement in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying, ““Globally, we’re already bigger than the NFL. We’re neck-and-neck with soccer. Soccer isn’t huge here in the United States, but all over the world it is. The only other thing that could work is fighting.” Sure enough, the NFL is not on Forbes’ list 2014 list.

WrestleMania

For event brands, Forbes took the average revenue from licensed merchandise, media, sponsorships, and ticket sales per-event-day. With this metric, WrestleMania was able to wrestle its way to #8, surpassing the Daytona 500 and the Kentucky Derby, with a brand value of $105 million.

On April 6, 2014, WrestleMania XXX, World Wrestling Entertainment’s WWE flagship event, was held in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans and attracted viewership from a record 1 million households on traditional pay-per-view and the new streaming media service, WWE Network (it was the first time a WWE event was shown on pay-per-view and live streamed simultaneously).

Pay-per-view cost viewers between $55 and $70, while WWE Network costs $9.99 per month with a six month contract. Additionally, with 75,167 people in attendance, and $10.9 million in ticket revenue alone, number 30 marked the fifth consecutive time that the event has broken the host venue’s record for highest-grossing entertainment event.