Baseball-Yankees extend reign as MLB's most valuable team-Forbes

March 25 (Reuters) - The New York Yankees are Major League Baseball's most valuable team for an 18th consecutive year, coming in at nearly triple the league's average value, according to a survey released by Forbes on Wednesday. The 27-time World Series champion Yankees were valued at $3.2 billion, a 28 percent jump from last year and comfortably above the second-ranked Los Angeles Dodgers, whose value rose 20 percent to $2.4 billion. The average MLB team is now worth $1.2 billion, a 48 percent spike from last year, which Forbes attributed to richer national broadcasting deals and higher overall profitability. The Yankees, who last year missed the playoffs for only the third time since 1994 yet saw their revenue rise 10 percent to an MLB-high $508 million, have topped the list since Forbes began tracking MLB team valuations in 1998. The Boston Red Sox ($2.1 billion), World Series champion San Francisco Giants ($2 billion) and Chicago Cubs ($1.8 billion) rounded out the top five. For the complete list visit (http://www.forbes.com/mlb). (Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Mark Lamport-Stokes)