Which team has the ultimate front office in 2025? The fans get the final say – The New York Times

Sports Business
A banner year for the OKC Thunder continues. Matthew Stockman / Getty Images
This article is part of our Rankings & Tiers series, an evaluation across sport about the key players, front offices, teams, franchises and much more.
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s front office is the two-time defending No. 1 NBA front office, based on The Athletic’s polling of executives throughout the league.
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And the defending NBA champs — who sport a league-leading 24-2 record this season — have earned another accolade, topping The Athletic’s ultimate front office ranking, which lets fans select their No. 1 overall front office from across the top of the four big U.S.-based men’s pro sports leagues that were ranked throughout the year.
“The best-ever job of acquiring future assets while dominating in the present,” one NBA executive said of Sam Presti and the Thunder front office. “Usually, those two are a little exclusive when you’re talking about championship-level teams. Presti is just the preeminent GM in the league.”

OKC’s margin was as slim as they come, finishing just a handful of first-place votes ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who in 2025 secured back-to-back MLB championships and topped the 2025 MLB front office ranking earlier this year.
“They’re a behemoth, but also a behemoth built brick by brick for a long time by Andrew,” one MLB general manager said of the Dodgers. “You don’t just become a behemoth without doing 100 extraordinary things to win all the time, build players’ value and build the team in different ways. Now they have the platform to do seemingly whatever they want.”
Unsurprisingly, the top four was rounded out by two other franchises that led their respective league’s front office ranking: the NHL’s Florida Panthers, who had the third-most first-place votes, with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles a distant fourth.
"[Panthers GM Bill Zito and his team have done an exemplary job in pro scouting, asset management and team building," one NHL Western Conference assistant GM said in our NHL front office ranking. "They find undervalued players and pay rock-bottom acquisition costs. It’s one thing to consistently find value like they have. But they know who their team is and how they want to play, and they’ve done a better job than most in supporting their superstars with like-minded and similar-styled support players."
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Of the Eagles and GM Howie Roseman, one team executive said in our NFL front office ranking: “​​The best front offices operate with no fear, and thinking about both long-term and short-term. You get that by having tenure and really the ultimate respect of ownership, so that you know you can take a swing and miss. Howie has had way more hits than misses, but the misses don’t make him rethink swinging again.”
The most surprising result was the team that earned the fifth-most first-place votes in the fan vote — the Milwaukee Brewers, who jumped from 3rd place in the MLB ranking and leap-frogging all four teams that earned No. 2 ranking in their respective sports.
One AL general manager gave his MLB front office ranking first-place vote to Milwaukee, saying “The Brewers are the gold standard of a small market – even more so than Tampa.”
A secondary poll question asked which of the 13 teams would earn fans’ No. 2 ranking, with the same four teams (Thunder, Dodgers, Eagles, Panthers) finishing in the top four of that list, and the Los Angeles Rams jumping up into the spot with the fifth-most votes for the second-best front office on our list.
For much more — including candid assessments from more than 100 front-office executives across the four major U.S.-based men's pro sports leagues — please check out each of the four sports' individual front office rankings:
⚾ MLB: Dodgers’ dominate
🏈 NFL: Champs’ advantage
🏒 NHL: Panther power
🏀 NBA: Who can stop OKC?
The Rankings and Tiers series is sponsored by E*Trade from Morgan Stanley.
The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Sponsors have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
 

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