The financial health of Major League Baseball clubs is up, up, up in all but three clubs.
The Texas Rangers bankruptcy sale and infusion of hundreds of millions in equity made the Rangers one of the top gainers in value rising up to $561 million, according to a blog report on Forbes.com.
Forbes blogger Kurt Badenhausen had this to say about the Rangers No. 8 ranking and the business of baseball:
Another big winner was the Texas Rangers (up 25%, to $561 million). Ray Davis and Bob Simpson bought the team, the lease to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and some nearby real estate from Tom Hicks in a bankruptcy court auction for $593 million in July. Not only are the Rangers, which needed assistance from MLB to meet payroll last season, much better capitalized (the new owners infused the team with $225 million of equity), the team also has a new, richer cable deal. It signed a 20-year TV deal with Fox Sports Southwest that is expected to pay more than $1.5 billion over the life of the contract. The afterglow of the team’s first World Series appearance in October will also boost sponsorship and ticket revenues this year.
Tops, unsurprisingly, were the Yankees of New York followed by the Red Sox. But the disparagy between No. 1 ($1.7 billion) and 2 ($912 million) is huge -- 86 percent.
Taking a dive in 2010 were the Mets, Padres and Indians. See the rankings for all teams here.
