Forbes: D-backs are 20th-highest valued MLB team
Apr 11, 2017, 5:00 PM
Arizona Diamondbacks' Chris Owings, front, celebrates his walk-off single against the San Francisco Giants with Jake Lamb (22), Paul Goldschmidt, second from left, Brandon Drury, second from right, and Robbie Ray, right, in an opening-day baseball game Sunday, April 2, 2017, in Phoenix. The Diamondbacks defeated the Giants 6-5. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
The Arizona Diamondbacks may have sputtered with a 69-93 record in 2016, but that didn’t stop the team from increasing its value by a substantial margin.
According to Forbes, Arizona’s value rose by 24 percent from 2016 when it was worth $925 million to $1.15 billion in 2017. While the franchise’s overall value went up, its ranking among MLB teams went down, from 19th to 20th.
In 2017, there are 23 teams valued at or above $1 billion, while there were only 17 teams at that level in 2016. Arizona is joined by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Colorado Rockies, Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres and Minnesota Twins as teams that had their values reach the $1 billion threshold from 2016 to 2017.
The D-backs have a payroll of $93,257,600, below the league average of $137,893,239.
Arizona drew an average of 25,138 fans to its home games in 2016, which was 21st in the league. In total, the D-backs had 2,036,216 fans come to Chase Field in 2016.
In the Valley, the D-backs are the second most valuable team, with the Arizona Cardinals at the top, worth $2.025 billion. The Suns are third, with a value of $1.1 billion, and the Arizona Coyotes are way behind the rest, worth $240 million.
