Isiah Thomas hasn't totally destroyed the Knicks...

...yet.

Here's the total list of rankings

Charlotte ranks 24th.

Even though the Knicks are the highest at $592 million that pales in comparison to other sports. In baseball there are three teams higher valued. The New York Mets are worth $604 million, the Boston Red Sox are $617 million, and the New York Yankees are valued at a whopping $1.026 billion. My beloved Pirates are worth a paltry $250 million. Believe it or not the Yankees aren't the most valuable franchise. The NFL is far and away the most successful America professional sports league and in Forbes' last valuations, there were five NFL teams valued at a billion or more. The Philadelphia Eagles didn't edge out the Yankees $1.024 billion. But the others did. The Houston Texans at $1.043 billion, the Dallas Cowboys at $1.173 billion, the New England Patriots at $1.176 billion, and the Washington Redskins are the most valuable American franchise at $1.423 billion. Two soccer teams are also more valuable than $1 billion. Real Madrid at $1.012 billion. Manchester United used to be considered the most valuable franchise in the world but for now will have to settle for second at $1.373 billion.

Which franchises have changed the most in value over the last measuring period. I won't check soccer because there are so many teams worldwide that it'd be hard to measure. I will mention that Arsenal increased in value by 37%. I would have checked hockey too, but the stats only included a two year value change (probably because of the fairly recent lockout). It's already slightly inaccurate because all the reports are done at different times, but it wouldn't be fair to compare two year valuations to one year. So which have been the best and worst performing "investments" in the major 3 American pro sports leagues?

Five Best Performing Sports Franchises

5. Anaheim Angels +25% As you'll see baseball teams were the big winners of the three main sports leagues. My guess is due to the success of the last few postseasons and relatively little drama (outside of the steroids scandals). Also the average baseball team is less valuable than the average NFL team so they had more room to grow. They're actually the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Now that they have an L.A. name that may have increased their value.

4. Oakland Athletics +26%: Always been a small market franchise but they continue to win and sabermetrics continues to sweep the sport thanks to Moneyball written about the Oakland A's general manager.

3. Kansas City Royals: +28% Surprised to see them here because they've been terrible. I guess a rising tide raises all ships. And the bad ones even more so.

2. Toronto Blue Jays: +34% Might be wrong, but did their value increase so much because they're now the only non-NHL team located in Canada since the Expos left? Just a thought.

1. Washington Nationals: 42% No doubt due to the fact that they moved from the Montreal area which didn't care about them anymore to the Washington D.C. metro.

Five (actually Six) Worst Performing Franchises:

Three way tie for 4th: New Orleans Saints, Seattle Mariners, Colorado Rockies: +3% Fair disclosure. The football report was done before New Orleans' magical run this year. But this was right after Katrina and New Orleans always sucked. When your entire populace is either killed or displaced, that kind of hurts market value. Colorado and Seattle have just been painfully mediocre and perhaps have reached a fair value. No clue though.

3. Minnesota Timberwolves: +2% They're terrible and considering trading their only superstar in Kevin Garnett. If he is ever traded 2% will look like a great increase.

2. Portland Trail Blazer +1% Terrible and the team's criminal problems have turned the population mostly against the franchise.

1. Charlotte Bobcats: -8% Congratulations Charlotte. You're the only non-NHL team to decrease in value. Not surprising though. The fans are still pissed the Hornets left. And the Bobcats are just a couple of years old and still not very good. They're just not going to increase in value until they start winning. It may be coming soon but for now, they lost 8% of their value since last year.