Forbes‘ annual valuation of National Football League franchises (related article here) was published this week, and the annual survey rates the Houston Texans as the fourth most valuable in the NFL at $1.056 billion (the Dallas Cowboys top the list this year at $1.5 billion). The value of public financing of stadiums has a huge impact on the valuations as all of the top 10 most valuable teams are the beneficiaries of either new stadiums or stadiums currently under construction. Several observations:

The Texans will probably decline in rank a bit in another year or two as the value of the Giants and Jets increases in response to the opening of their new stadium;
If you assume that Bud Adams’ Houston Oilers would have been worth at least as much as the Texans had they remained in Houston and awaited a new stadium rather than taking flight to Nashville to become the Tennessee Titans, then Adams left over a cool $100 million on the table by making that move. And the difference in value between the Texans and the Titans is increasing;
A new stadium is not always a gold mine in terms of increasing a team’s value. The Cardinals and the Lions have two of the newest stadiums in the NFL, but they are ranked only 23rd and 24th respectively out of the 32 NFL teams in terms of value;
Who would have ever thought that the San Francisco 49ers would be among the lowest valued NFL franchises (30th) and worth less than the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Oakland Raiders and the Buffalo Bills?