Ian Rapoport Says True NFL Team Valuations Are ‘Infinite’

Earlier this week, the Cowboys became the first sports team to be valued at more than $10 billion. But to longtime NFL reporter Ian Rapoport, the true number could be far higher.

“I never quite can tell what any of that really means, honestly,” Rapoport told Front Office Sports Today. “How do you value the Cowboys? Infinite. Like if they were actually on the market, I couldn’t even guess what the price would be. I maybe couldn’t even count that high.”

Rapoport was responding to questions about private equity; NFL owners are set to change their rules to allow PE investment in teams as soon as this fall. (Rapoport is a reporter for the league-owned NFL Media.) The owners are cracking the door to institutional investors in part because the valuations have gotten so expensive that hardly any individuals remain who can afford to buy NFL teams on their own. As Rapoport put it, “With the price getting so high … opening the door to private equity makes sense because it’ll help get the value to probably where it should be.”

He was skeptical that new rules allowing the PE money would have a major impact on teams beyond that.

“I don’t think it’ll trickle down into how teams operate because teams have a lot of cash anyway,” he said. “And I feel like the teams who don’t have a lot of cash aren’t going to be the teams that—not that there’s even a lot of those teams, but they’re probably not going to be the ones that’ll take on those investments.”

Rapoport hit on every hot topic of the NFL preseason, from Guardian Caps to the new kickoff to the high-profile contract standoffs with the Jets and Cowboys. You can listen to the full FOS Today interview here.