Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to win football games to increase the value of your team. If you need an example, look no further than the New York Jets.
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The AFC East franchise is one of the longer-standing organizations in the history of the NFL. But, in the modern era, it’s seldom viewed as anything more than a laughing stock. The New York Jets have produced just five winning seasons since the turn of the century, and they haven’t seen the playoffs for 15 consecutive years.
Nevertheless, the Jets were the fifth most valuable team in all of the NFL, according to the latest Forbes list. The club received a total valuation of $6.9 billion in August of 2024, outpacing the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won three of the last six Super Bowls, by more than two billion dollars.
New York also managed to post an operating income of $138 million compared to Kansas City’s $115 million despite spending $41 million more on player expenses. Suffice to say, the New York market has helped to ensure that the Jets are simply too big to fail, at least from a business standpoint.
It’s hard to rival a metro area population of nearly 20 million, even when you’re appearing in the AFC Championship on a yearly basis. Then again, in Kansas City, everyone is happy, while in New York, the owners are the only ones who seem to be thriving.
Although, the mood may soon change for them as well. Even though the franchise just enjoyed a one-year value increase of 19%, bringing its current valuation up to $8.11 billion, the Jets just fell two spots in Sportico’s value rankings.
Should the franchise ever hope to produce one of those 25% value jumps that teams like the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers just saw, then they’ll need to start prioritizing wins over dollars. Thankfully, for Jets fans, that seems to be the plan.
The franchise issued a series of sweeping changes this off season. More than $250 million was spent in free agency, and they even managed to land one of the league’s most prominent coordinators today, Aaron Glenn, as their new head coach.
Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it’s going to take some time before Glenn is able to see derive any form of meaningful results from this roster, but thankfully, New York has a relatively young core of players that will allow him to build and orchestrate this team to his desires.
Until then, however, fans should expect to see the same old Jets that they’ve grown accustomed to throughout the past few decades. That being a lackluster product motivated by ruining someone else’s playoff chances rather than boosting their own.
