DENVER, Colo. (KOAA) — If Rockies fans are hoping to send a message to the team owners by boycotting games, their lower attendance in recent years hasn’t stopped the franchise from increasing in value.
According to the Forbes 2026 list of Baseball’s Most Valuable Teams, the Rockies jumped 14% in value year-over-year. Based on Forbes estimates, the team is now worth $1.68 billion.
That number is good for the 25th most valuable team in the MLB (out of 30). Two years ago, the Rockies were in the 20 spot.
- Watch News5's coverage of that report below:
The Rockies and much of the MLB have been stagnant in growth for several years. The Rockies essentially grew 0% the past few seasons, hovering around the $1.5 billion mark.
Some might wonder how three 100-loss seasons in a row, with a last-place and record-breakingly bad 2025 campaign (worst run differential in the modern era) could possibly translate to increased worth.
According to Brett Knight, assistant managing editor at Forbes, who helped put together the valuation list, a rising tide lifts all boats.
After the Tampa Bay Rays recently sold for $1.7 billion, which was well above Forbes’ valuation, a signal was sent that most team values could be increased.
“The rest of that bottom third or so of the league has really jumped up pretty considerably, and a lot of that is tied to the sale that we saw last year of the Rays,” said Knight. “That sort of helped pull up that entire sort of group of teams. And I think you more or less would put the Rockies in that same sort of category.”
Knight said the Rockies benefit from some of the league-wide trends pulling up all teams in the lower tier, where the Rockies now woefully sit. But it wasn’t always that way.
“I think it's maybe worth thinking back to when we first started publishing this list in '98, Rockies debuted at number 4,” Knight said. “The first era of the list, they really were seen as sort of a top-tier club.”
Times haven’t been kind to the Blake Street Bombers since then. Despite some playoff appearances, including a 2007 run to the World Series, the team’s on-field product has suffered.
However, Knight emphasized that so much more goes into the MLB team values.
“When we think about valuing a team, on-field performance matters, but it matters sort of only insofar as it affects the business performance,” he said.
Based on his estimates, the Rockies still posted a revenue of $319 million last year, which boasted $20 million in operating income. That means the Rockies came out $20 million ahead after taking operating expenses out of the revenue.
That places the Rockies in the middle of the pack since many teams are still unprofitable, Knight said.
Apart from the Chicago White Sox, all other teams boosted their value from last year. From the 4% boost to the top-ranked New York Yankees ($8.5 billion) to a 43% gain for the bottom-ranked Miami Marlins ($1.5 billion).
Tommy Aicher, Dean of the UCCS College of Business, echoed Knight’s assertions about business growth.
“It's really just based on broadcast media rights, sponsorship deals, league-wide revenue sharing,” Aicher said. “All of that is going to increase the overall evaluation of the team compared to what we see at the turnstiles or the attendance of the game.”
Still, Rockies attendance has taken a noticeable dip in recent years. According to ESPN’s MLB Attendance Report, Rockies consistently ranked in the top 10 of the entire league for attendance from 2017 to 2022 (apart from the untracked COVID year in 2020).
In 2018, for example, the Rockies averaged 37,233 fans a game, which was good for the seventh-most fans of any team.
In 2025, that number dropped by an average of 7,176 fans per game to 30,057. The Rockies have ranked 14th or 15th highest in the MLB for attendance the last three seasons.
Though the total valuation may not be noticeably impacted by fewer fans, Aicher said more fans would bring more revenue to invest in a better team, which would bring other intrinsic benefits.
“From a civic standpoint, it really helps elevate the brand of the city, be it Denver or Colorado more broadly, where people will take pride in the team that's successful,” said Aicher.
“When the Avalanche won a couple of years back, and the Nuggets won a couple of years back, you saw a lot more jerseys of those two teams and a little bit more pride in the city and the place, and that's the piece that the Rockies could really benefit from and help the community,” he said.
But something to keep an eye on that both Aicher and Knight brought up will be the collective bargaining agreement later this year.
Team owners are likely to demand a salary-cap system when the labor agreement expires in December. A lockout is widely expected as a result as a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is negotiated.
Knight and Aicher expect a new salary-cap system to help bring more parity to the league and benefit teams like the Rockies to become more competitive.
At the same time, it would likely force lower spending teams like the A’s and Rays to invest and spend more, Knight said.
He added that a salary cap would bring a noticeable impact to MLB valuations since the current model doesn’t limit actual player payrolls. That expectation has already been priced in this year, which also helped lift team values, he said.
“That has a big impact on valuations when you can't necessarily predict your player costs in a very predictable way. That's your biggest expense and you don't know exactly where it's headed, that scares off a lot of investors,” Knight said.
“So the sort of optimism–cautious optimism–among investors is that there is going to be that salary cap system come into force in the next CBA that has given some uplift, I think, to evaluations this go around,” he said.
As the Rockies launch their 2026 campaign on Friday, hoping to avoid the cellar once again, Vegas sportsbooks aren't optimistic.
BetMGM gave the Rockies -400 odds as the clear favorites to have the worst record in baseball once again.
They open the season at the Miami Marlins and host their Coors Field home opener on April 3 against the Philadelphia Phillies.
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