Few professional sports teams have tested their fan base as much as the Toronto Maple Leafs.
But no other sports team has been able to do so while also remaining ridiculously overvalued. In case you’ve been unaware, Forbes Magazine has appraised the Leafs as the most valuable NHL team for the past 10 YEARS – since 2005. In that time they have made the playoffs ONCE. And, as a result, their 13-year sellout streak was finally broken last season.
It’s taken a long time for those losses to add up but it seems they finally have. When Forbes released its annual NHL review today, the Maple Leafs had dropped to number three overall. Ironically, a ranking fans would desperately like to see in the NHL (the Maple Leafs are currently 13th in the Eastern Conference Standings).
Coming in ahead of the Maple Leafs were the New York Rangers (1.2 billion USD) and the Montreal Canadiens (1.18 billion USD). While the Leafs are close behind with a current valuation of 1.15 billion USD it’s definitely worth noting that last year, when they topped the list, Forbes had put their worth at 1.3 billion USD. So, much like their position in the NHL, they’re continuing to fall:
Perhaps this will finally be enough to make ownership realize that their brand is not completely invincible. Then again, spending more when you’ve just dropped over a hundred million in a year could just serve to keep them as uncommitted as ever.
The most likely scenario of course, is simply that (as always) nothing will change at all.
#GoRaptors
[ad_bb1]