With the Major League Baseball season still in its first month, CNBC has issued its first ever list of the most valuable MLB franchises, with the New York Yankees topping the list at $8 billion, followed by the L.A. Dodgers who are valued at $5.6 billion.

The valuations were calculated by sports valuation expert and CNBC’s senior sports reporter Michael Ozanian. After adjusting for revenue sharing, he noted in an article that “the Yankees posted an MLB-high $705 million in revenue during the 2024 season.”

The Dodgers, who are the reigning World Series champions, generated $701 in revenue, according to CNBC’s calculations. The Yankees and the Dodgers were the only two teams to rack up more than $600 million in revenue according to CNBC.

Ozanian also reported that the Yankees, valued as the MLB’s most valuable team at $8 billion, were the third most valuable sports franchise in the U.S., trailing the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys (worth $11 billion) and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors ($9.4 billion). The NFL’s L.A. Rams were also valued at $8 billion.

While the MLB teams had eye-watering valuations, Ozanian also reported that the “MLB has been facing revenue headwinds from the decline of the regional sports network model and concerns about national TV rights, particularly since February, when ESPN announced it would opt out of its agreement with MLB after this season. A lack of a salary cap in the league has also hurt the bottom line. The NBA, NFL and NHL, all of which have salary caps, boast margins for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, of about 20%. In contrast, MLB, which does not have a salary cap, has an EBITDA margin of 5%, according to CNBC’s calculations.”

The full rankings along with details of each team can be found here.

The full CNBC clip of Ozanian discussing the rankings can be viewed here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—The San Francisco 49ers’ 30-24 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 27 ranked as NBC’s most-watched Week 8 “Sunday Night Football” game on record, averaging 23.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms and NFL Digital platforms, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

NBC Sports’ audience peaked at 26.4 million viewers in the second quarter (9:15-9:30 p.m. ET).

Viewership of Cowboys-49ers outpaced last year’s Week 8 game by 43% (16.7 million for Chicago Bears-Los Angeles Chargers).

NBC Sports also reported that “Sunday Night Football” is averaging 22.4 million viewers across all platforms—the series’ best average audience through Week 8 since 2015.

BRISTOL, Conn.—NFL football continues to attract large audiences with ESPN reporting that viewing for the season to date through six weeks is up 6% (averaging more than 15 million viewers) and that the week 6 audience for the Dallas Cowboys at Los Angles Chargers on October 16 was the fifth most popular MNF game ever, garnered more than 19.7 million viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and NFL+). 

It was also easily the most-watched ESPN MNF Week 6 game, surpassing the Bears-Cardinals in 2006 (14.2 million viewers). The Cowboys-Chargers was up 63% from last year’s week 6 game (Broncos-Chargers).

ESPN reported that the audience peaked at 21.8 million in the fourth quarter (11 – 11:15 p.m.). Monday Night Football was also the most-watched telecast of the night overall and across all key demos. 

Audience levels for the five previous weeks were: 

• Week 1: 22.6 million viewers, ESPN’s most-watched Monday Night Football game
• Week 2 and 3: More than 21.7 million viewers during each of the two hours of overlapping action of two games (8:15 – 10:15 p.m. ET)
• Week 4: 16.6 million viewers, the most-watched Week 4 MNF game in 14 seasons
• Week 5: 17.4 million viewers, the most-watched Week 5 MNF game in the ESPN era

DALLAS—KXAS, the NBC station for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, issued an apology for it failing to immediately interrupt the broadcast of Sunday Night Football between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles with a Tornado Warning.

After meteorologists issued a Tornado Warning for Dallas County on Oct. 20, KXAS delayed interrupting the game for six minutes.

“When it comes to dealing with severe weather, we know that seconds matter,” the station said in its statement. “We should have broken into football programming sooner. We apologize and want you to know that we’re doing everything in our power to make sure this does not happen again.”

KSAX meteorologists were livestreaming weather coverage on its website throughout the evening and alerted the football audience to the livestream throughout the game, the station said.

However, that did not stop criticism from some.

The tornado ultimately impacted more than 17 miles across the Dallas County area, destroying homes and businesses, with three people hospitalized but no reports of fatalities.

CHESHIRE, CONN.—The stars are night are reportedly big and bright in Texas, and few shine brighter than the star of the Dallas Cowboys. Now, the NFL team has a brand new broadcast studio courtesy of Creative Dimensions to emphasize that.

The Connecticut-based company was tasked with building a new broadcast studio for the Cowboys’ Star facility in Frisco, Texas, which serves as a basis of operation for much of the organization. The studio was completed back in late October.

Creative Dimensions is a provider of permanent and traveling broadcast set options.