It wasn't that long ago when owning an NFL franchise was nearly a no-risk venture. Revenue sharing, a salary cap and the most lucrative television contract in professional sports made it virtually impossible to go wrong from a business standpoint. Even if the team floundered, your bank account did not.
But the recent recession ushered in a new set of realities. For the first time in a decade, eight NFL teams saw their overall value decline, according to annual rankings compiled by Forbes magazine. League-wide, ticket sales are down nearly 10 percent. The NFL said this week that it expects that at least 25 games, and possibly as many as 50, will be blacked out on local television this season. Yet despite the uncertainty, the Baltimore Ravens are one of the teams on a steady path of growth and what they hope is long-term prosperity.
The Ravens were ranked as the 11th-most-valuable NFL franchise by Forbes at $1.079 billion, up 2 percent from the previous year. The team has sold out its 2009 home games, bringing its consecutive regular-season sellout streak to 112 games, dating to the birth of the franchise. Despite playing in one of the league's smallest media markets - 26th of 32 teams - and having virtually no national following, the Ravens had an estimated $240 million of revenue last year, better than 21 teams, according to Forbes.
