Jerry Jones the owner of cowboys sale the entire Dallas Cowboys over $9 Billion and said

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Thanks to lucrative new television deals and stadium financing, the average value of each team is $5.1 billion. And when the league increases its debt limit, the billionaire owners will score even bigger.

The record $6.05 billion purchase of the Washington Commanders in July by a group led by Josh Harris—8% more than Forbes’ valuation a year ago and 30% more than the sale price of the Denver Broncos last August—helped boost the average NFL team value 14% over the past year, to $5.1 billion.

That means the aggregate value of the entire league—$163 billion—is almost as much as the NBA and MLB combined.

But the Commanders deal was an anomaly. First, the new ownership group has 20 limited partners, by far the most in the NFL. There was no real competing bid—the only other legitimate offer was $5.6 billion from Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta. Finally, the $6 billion included a $200 million “earn-out” that will be paid to former owner Dan Snyder if the Commanders reach specified revenue targets over the next three seasons. The team will almost certainly hit those revenue targets and make the payment, so it’s essentially $200 million of seller financing.

To make it easier to buy a team going forward, the NFL will very likely have to relax some of its stringent rules for future owners. League rules currently stipulate that a general partner must own at least 30% of a team, much stricter than the NBA (15%), MLB (15%) and NHL (20%) rules. The NFL is going to increase its debt limit over the next several months. Currently, teams can have $600 million of debt, and a prospective buyer is permitted to have up to $1.1 billion of debt. Before the next team goes on the market, those figures are going to increase to $1 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively, according to team owners who spoke with Forbes, making it easier for a general partner to come up with that 30%.

And there are smart reasons for the NFL to follow this game plan, aside from simply wanting higher prices when a team sells. For one thing, the league has an “A” credit rating on its $1.27 billion in new debt from Fitch in March. And by Forbes’ estimation, NFL team debt is an average of just 9% of team values.

Bigger piles of TV cash are also headed the NFL’s way starting this season, making that debt even more affordable. The league now has five television deals that will kick in this season and, when combined with Amazon’s AMZN +1.7% Thursday Night Football deal that started in 2022, are guaranteed to yield $125.5 billion through 2033. The actual amount of television money the NFL receives by 2033 will likely be considerably more than that because the league has an option to extend its agreement with Disney into 2033, and the Sunday Ticket commercial rights (bars, restaurants) should generate a least another $1.4 billion by the end of 2029.