The Royals had their first losing season since 2012 last year, with dropping attendance figures despite a record-high payroll, but that didn’t hurt the value of the franchise. According to the annual estimates by Forbes magazine, the Royals are now worth over a billion dollars. Forbes pegs the Royals as the 27th most-valuable franchise in baseball, worth $1.015 billion, a 6.8% increase from last year, when they were estimated to be worth $950 million.
According to Forbes’ estimates, the Royals lost $17 million last year, a big jump from the estimated $900,000 they were estimated to have lost in 2016, but far from the $60 million in combined losses the team has claimed.