In September a portion of the Chicago Fire was sold, valuing the team at $400 million. In a sports world where large numbers float by with regularity, another big dollar sign went largely undigested. In 2007, Forbes began to publish valuations of MLS franchises, including the Fire. The first valuation estimated the team was worth $41 million, and so the investors appear to have returned almost ten times their money since then. That’s a 21% annual rate of return, which is a remarkable number for a twelve-year period, especially one that included the great recession of our lifetime. Over that same period, the Average Pat might have seen returns in the 6% range. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had an annual growth rate of 6.1% from the end of 2007 to September of this year, while the S&P 500 trailed slightly at 6.0% over the same time period.