The value of the San Jose Sharks increased by $50 million from last year until now but the franchise’s rate of growth was slower than a majority of other NHL franchises, a Tuesday report indicated.
The Sharks are now worth $755 million, Sportico reported, making them the 26th most-valuable team in the 32-team NHL. The team’s value, per the report, increased 7 percent over last year when the Sharks were worth $705 million, which, at the time, made them the 24th-most valuable team in the league.
The value of 13 NHL teams grew by at least 10 percent, Sportico said, and eight other teams grew between 8 and 9 percent. The average value of an NHL franchise is now $1.01 billion, and the value of the 32 franchises is worth a combined $32.4 billion.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are No. 1 on the list at $2.12 billion. The Arizona Coyotes rank 32nd at $465 million.
Per Sportico, NHL teams generated $6.1 billion in revenue last season, which includes non-NHL events, like concerts. The Sharks lease and operate SAP Center, the 17,562-seat facility owned by the City of San Jose.
SAP Center is one of the oldest buildings in the NHL, newer only than New York’s Madison Square Garden, which underwent a major $1 billion refurbishment last decade, the Saddledome in Calgary, and the Honda Center in Anaheim.
Sportico said the Sharks’ generated $145 million in revenue during the 2021-2022 season, a sharp increase over the $59 million total they had the previous season.
That year, due to local COVID-19 health guidelines, the Sharks were not allowed to have spectators inside the SAP Center until the final few weeks of the 56-game regular season.
The Sharks that year had fans for seven of 28 home games, with attendance listed between 520 people when restrictions were first eased in late April 2021, to 1,654 in mid-May.
Through a team spokesperson, the Sharks declined to comment on the report.
In Dec. 2021, Forbes valued the Sharks at $625 million, or the 23rd-most valuable team in the NHL.
The Sharks, per hockeydb.com, distributed an average of 12,574 tickets per game last season. Through six home games this season, the Sharks have distributed an average of 14,482 tickets per game.
The Sharks were listed as having $133 million in revenue in 2019-2020. That year, the Sharks played 36 of 41 home games before the NHL paused its season.
Hasso Plattner is the sole owner of Sharks Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the NHL’s Sharks, the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda, and the non-profit Sharks Foundation.
Plattner was a charter member of the local ownership group that bought the Sharks from original owner George Gund III in 2002. In 2010, Plattner became the organization’s majority owner and in recent years, became the team’s lone owner.
Among the Sharks’ main corporate sponsors are Adobe, Coca-Cola, Kaiser Permanente, Molson Coors, Toyota, and Zoom.
Sportico said its team values are “derived from metrics by which hockey-team transactions occur, including aggregating local and national revenues and factoring in a team-specific multiplier. This represents the fair market value of the team itself, excluding related businesses held by its owners.”
