Kansas City Royals Franchise Valued at $700 Million

One would think that making the World Series would lead to a dramatic increase in the value of the Kansas City Royals. After all, nothing breeds success like success, or so the old axiom goes. With the Royals recent success, and a young team that could be intact for a few more years, that should affect the team value in a positive way.

Likewise, given some of the struggles other teams have had over the past few years, one would also expect that the Kansas City Royals would have climbed the ranking ladder. Even if this run of success has only been over the past couple of seasons, that is still better than a few other teams around the game. Even if the Royals are not one of the more valuable franchises, one would think they would have, at the very least, gained some ground.

Well, according to the annual list of MLB franchise values put out by Forbes, you would be partially correct. The Royals saw their value increase dramatically over last season, with the team being worth $210 Million more than they were in 2014. However, while the Royals $700 Million value is impressive, that only ranks 28th in baseball, ahead of only the Miami Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays.

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In a way, this does make some degree of sense. After all, the Kansas City Royals only had one winning season in the twenty years prior to 2013, so this new found success has yet to show in terms of value. Likewise, the Royals Alex Gordon is not necessarily a superstar in the mold of an Andrew McCutchen, which explains why a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates would be ranked 17th. These factors would seemingly matter in determining franchise values.

However, the Kansas City Royals being considered less valuable than the Houston Astros or the Oakland A’s has to be laughable. The Astros received the same amount of revenue from their local television deal that any of us reading this did last season – nothing. Meanwhile, the Oakland A’s have been rebuffed in their attempts to move out of Oakland, where they would presumably find a stadium with working plumbing. Surely having a beautiful stadium and a locker room that is not knee deep in sewage should count for something!

Perhaps with another season of success, the Kansas City Royals will continue to climb the rankings. One would certainly hope that they would, at the very least, get beyond a team without working toilets.

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