Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrate a win in 2022.
David Eulitt | Getty
The NFL team that has won three of the last five Super Bowls is worth less than the organizations with the league's two longest playoff droughts.
The Kansas City Chiefs, the NFL's current dynasty, are only the 18th most valuable team in the league at $6.07 billion, according to CNBC's official 2024 NFL team valuations.
That puts the franchise well below the $7.35 billion New York Jets, who haven't made the playoffs since the 2010 season, and a few spots behind the $6.2 billion Denver Broncos, who haven't played in the postseason since the 2015 season and are 1-9 against the Chiefs since 2019.
But making the playoffs, and even dominating them, doesn't generate as much value-generating revenue for a team as one might hope.
The bulk of a team’s revenue in a given season comes from the rising broadcast rights fees the NFL collects for its games. For the 2023 season, each team received an average of more than $350 million from the league in broadcast rights fees — more than half of most NFL teams’ annual revenue, according to CNBC data analysis and reporting. The Chiefs recorded $590 million in revenue last season.
Additionally, the majority of postseason ticket revenue goes to the league to cover expenses. The home team receives a stipend, but hosting playoff games — something the Chiefs have done ten times in the past five years — doesn’t contribute much to the ticket sales a team actually pockets. Contrast this with leagues like the NBA and NHL, where clubs receive a much larger share of playoff ticket revenue.
Stadium ownership and operating rights are also a lucrative source of revenue for NFL teams. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones created the model for raising huge sums that are not shared with the rest of the league, and a crucial part of that comes from sponsorship deals and non-football events at AT&T Stadium, to which Jones holds the operating rights.
The Chiefs can’t follow that playbook, at least for now. The team is a tenant at Arrowhead Stadium and pays rent to the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority. That means the Chiefs, owned by the Lamar Hunt family, can’t cash in on non-football revenue like the Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams can.
On top of that, Arrowhead Stadium is more than 50 years old, so it doesn't have the extensive sponsorship and advertising opportunities offered by newer venues like the Las Vegas Raiders' Allegiant Stadium and the Los Angeles Rams' SoFi Stadium.
The Chiefs' owners had planned to renovate Arrowhead Stadium, but earlier this year, voters in Jackson County, Missouri, rejected a proposal to expand the sales tax that would have been used to fund the renovation.
Chiefs leaders have set a deadline of the end of 2024 to decide what to do when the team's lease agreement with the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority expires in 2031.
Still, postseason appearances and success can still boost a team's finances, though not necessarily in the year of a given playoff run.
There are several factors that drive ticket sales, but having a better record is one way to boost prices. The average cost of Chiefs tickets was $131.81 for a game in the 2023 season, well above the league average of $120.94, according to Statista.
Teams that participate in the playoffs annually may also be more attractive to sponsors because they can almost guarantee that thousands more people will be in their stadiums each year.
The Chiefs played their first game of the NFL season on Thursday, defeating the Baltimore Ravens 27-20.
