SOME OF MY FONDEST memories from my first stint at Forbes, in the 1990s, revolve around sports: tagging along with Jack Nicklaus as he traded up his private jet, or with Nike’s Phil Knight as he walked through the Olympic Village he helped fund; eating breakfast pancakes in Vegas with George Foreman as he revealed the marketing alchemy of pay-per-view, or jumbo shrimp in Orlando with a young Shaquille O’Neal at his rap-album launch party, a pioneer of the multiplatform-celebrity era.

      It felt heady and big, but in retrospect it’s clear that sports business was in its infancy. The millions I chronicled became billions, as you can see in our annual Major League Baseball rankings, on page 19. (A paltry $4.6 billion for the Yankees, anyone?) Our coverage has gotten exponentially stronger to match. From team valuations to player earnings to brand equity, no media outlet tops Forbes. (When teams change hands, Forbes’ valuations are the yardstick—a fact no small number of owners have confirmed to me.)
      That’s largely due to Mike Ozanian and Kurt Badenhausen, who for over 20 years have been expanding and beefing up our coverage—entrepre-neurially when necessary. “When I came to Forbes in 1997, I was told by my editors not to undertake the team valuations,” says Ozanian, who hosts our four-time Emmy-winning SportsMoney television show on the YES Network. “Kurt and I did them in sercret the first year.”

      A newer crew, led by Chris Smith, Brett Knight, Christina Settimi and Dan Kleinman, exhibit similar brio as they work at enhancing our real-time coverage—this time with our explicit encouragement! A site-within-a-site at Forbes.com, SportsMoney now has a correspondent assigned to almost every major U.S. pro sports team—130 contributors in all, each providing a money driven perspective you won’t find on traditional sports sites. “We’re the only people who do what we do,” Smith says.
      There’s more to come. A relaunched SportsMoney home page, a growing newsletter, more rankings—hello, esports—and premium data tools and indexes. Big plans befitting a big business.