First the big endorsement dollars go to the league as in licensing fees or paying the league to claim to be an official sponsor of the NFL. Yes teams have some of those but those local contracts aren't anywhere close to the size of the big contracts with the league.
As far as the ranking of the sports franchise they are not based solely on the amount of money socked away, but on their assets like stadiums and practice facilities, the name of America's Team, merchandise sales, the fact that the Cowboys are always in the news and not just the sporting news outlets but there are many articles about them in media besides sporting outlets and to a large part if the Cowboys were up for sale how much it would take to buy them.
I just checked Forbes top 50 sports franchise list and of course the Cowboys are #1 and the patriots are #7. The yankees are #2 and to prove what I said about not being the cash they may have, the Cowboys have a value of $5 billion and a operating income of $365 million. The yankees have a value of $4.6 billion and a operating income of only $30 million. The patriots at #7 are the 2nd highest ranking NFL team with a value of $3.8 billion and a operating income of $235 billion. Barcelona soccer team is #4 and last year they lost $37 million. A side note 26 of the 32 NFL teams are listed in the top 50 by Forbes. Those that didn't make it are the bengals, browns, lions, bills, bucs and titans.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtba...most-valuable-sports-teams-2019/#706fd4a283da.
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