What Is a Football Field Chart?
A football field chart condenses an entire valuation analysis onto a single page. Each horizontal bar represents the low-to-high range of value implied by one methodology, all plotted against a shared axis showing either share price or enterprise value. Reading down the chart, a viewer instantly sees where the methodologies agree, where they diverge, and how the current trading price or a proposed offer compares to intrinsic value estimates.
The name comes from the visual: parallel bars against a gridded axis look like the yard markings on an American football field. Bankers place the chart at the front of valuation sections in pitch books, board presentations, and fairness opinions because directors and executives want the conclusion first, with the supporting detail behind it.
What Goes on the Chart
A typical football field includes bars for comparable company analysis, precedent transaction analysis, and a discounted cash flow, with the DCF range usually driven by sensitivities on the discount rate and terminal growth or exit multiple. Deal-oriented versions add an LBO analysis showing what a financial sponsor could pay while still earning roughly a 20 percent IRR, which serves as an ability-to-pay floor, along with reference ranges like the 52-week trading range and equity research analyst price targets.
Constructing the bars requires judgment. For comps, the analyst might apply the peer set's 25th to 75th percentile EV/EBITDA multiples to the company's EBITDA, then bridge from enterprise value to equity value per share. Reference ranges such as the 52-week high and low are usually shaded differently because they reflect market history rather than an independent valuation methodology, a distinction interviewers like to hear articulated.
How to Read One Like a Banker
The overlap zone across methodologies is the headline. If comps imply 40 to 50 dollars per share, precedents imply 48 to 60 with their control premiums, and the DCF spans 45 to 58, an advisor might frame fair value around the high 40s to mid 50s and judge a 52 dollar offer as credible. Wide, non-overlapping bars signal either a business in transition or assumptions that need revisiting.
In interviews and on the job, the football field disciplines thinking about why methodologies differ: precedent transactions sit above trading comps because acquirers pay control premiums, while an LBO bar often sits lowest because sponsor return hurdles cap the price a financial buyer can justify. Being able to sketch a football field and explain the ordering of its bars is one of the cleanest ways to demonstrate valuation fluency.
