Patriots rank 8th on list of most valuable franchises

Charlie Riedel/AP

According to Forbes, the Patriots came in 8th on their list of most valuable sports franchises in the world, valued at $1.8 billion dollars. That's largely due to the Patriots selling out every home game since 1994, according to Forbes.

Not to mention the new stadium that opened up in 2002 which holds nearly 70,000 people, and I'm sure winning 3 Super Bowls and repeatedly making the playoffs helps keeps people coming back and buy tickets and merchandise as well.

The rest of the top 10 looks like this:
#1 - Real Madrid, $3.44 billion
#2 - Barcelona, $3.2 billion
#3 - Manchester United, $2.81 billion
#4 - New York Yankees, $2.5 billion
#5 - Dallas Cowboys, $2.3 billion
#6 - LA Dodgers, $2 billion
#7 - Bayern Munich, $1.85 billion
#8 - Patriots, $1.8 billion
#9 - Redskins, $1.7 billion
#10 - New York Giants, $1.55 billion

For anyone interested, the Red Sox made the list at 11th, with a value of $1.5 billion according to Forbes, fueled by a 14% increase in TV viewership after the Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004.

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