why are NBA franchises appreciating so much lately?

An actual Selling price is completely different than a valuation. Some analyst placing a value on rare sport franchise licenses does not sway the market. The market price works independent of analyst valuations when we are talking about rare commodities like this. You can't put an accurate valuation a rare commodity "a franchise license" by looking at business operation solely. The next owner may not care about how the previous ran his business.

My contention has always been that the valuations were low before, based on historical sells, and owners like them kept low for CBA negotiations ("We are losing money"). Only now, after 76rs, Bucks and Clipper sales, are we seeing these Forbes (etc) valuation coming into line with the market.

When trying to find a reason for rising valuation ... look no further than previous valuations were wrong and are being corrected.

 

We have a black president

 

The premise that valuation is the same as worth is flawed. When you're talking about owning one of only 30 franchises in all of the NBA, valuation goes right out the window. What Forbes has given us is a Kelly Blue Book, of sorts. You want to own an NBA franchise? Well then you better pony up, because this is how much you'll have to come up with. The increased revenues from the massive TV deal are bolstering projections, so that it's more enticing to own a team. And because of that, Forbes is projecting values of teams to be ever increasing. That's my take on it anyways.

 

Very simple

1) Fed lowers interest rates
2) Rich people make lots of money as paper assets soar
3) Rich people spend lots of money

 

30 years of tax cuts for the rich. They have tons of money to spend.

 

That's racist dawg

 

Economics. Supply vs Demand.

 

They tryin to keep the poor people out of owning a team.

 

If poor people had tax cuts they could buy the Rockets! lol

 

Why would they be hating?

 

The insane TV deal.

 

The country is becoming more urbanized

 

Sports franchises make a significant amount of their income on TV deals. This is apparent from the recent deals the Lakers announced in SoCal as well as the NBA with ABC/ESPN. Hell, even the NHL signed the biggest TV deal in its' history.

Think about the way that we consume TV programming now; on demand, streaming, DVR (no commercials.) Sports is the last outlet where people are actually watching live TV. What does this represent? An opportunity for advertisers to reach an audience in the successful and traditional TV commercial approach.

This to me is the biggest driver for increased valuation.

 

I concur. With the internet, entertainment has become highly fragmented and successful traditional TV advertising to truly massive audiences has become harder to find. Sporting and other live events provides the rare opportunity to have a lot of people watch commercials, making those spots more valuable and the live event becomes more valuable along with them. So, the NBA gets a massive TV deal and the franchises can justify higher selling costs because of that contract.

I think there's something to be said for how the NBA has made themselves a trophy horse for the idle rich, but most of these guys wouldn't run whole businesses around these NBA teams if the economics didn't make any sense. So, I really think that's secondary.