Football field
Valuation & CompsA chart stacking the value range produced by each method as a horizontal bar on a common axis, so a client can see where the methods agree.
Also written: football field chart, valuation football field
The football field is where a valuation exercise ends up. Each method contributes a bar rather than a point, plotted against a shared axis, usually value per share, and the reader takes in the whole analysis at a glance. It is the most read page in a pitch and often the only one anybody remembers.
Read it by looking for the overlap band, the region supported by more than one method. Where trading comps and a DCF agree you have a standalone range with both a relative and an intrinsic route to it. That band, not any single midpoint, is what a recommendation should be built on.
Expect the precedent bar to sit above the others and know why: it prices control and the synergies of specific buyers rather than the business as it stands. A 52 week trading range is usually shown too, and it is context rather than a method, since it records what the market happened to pay rather than what the company is worth.
Bars that do not overlap at all are a diagnostic rather than a presentation problem. It usually means an input is wrong: a terminal growth rate the comps cannot support, a precedent set drawn from a different point in the credit cycle, or a peer group that is not genuinely comparable. Find out which before the page leaves the building.
Worked example
Trading comps give 44.00 to 54.00 per share, a DCF gives 48.00 to 62.00, precedents give 56.00 to 68.00, and the shares trade at 46.00.
The overlap band of 48.00 to 54.00 is the standalone answer. The precedent bar sitting entirely above it is the price of control plus synergies, so an offer of 55.00 is above what the company is worth on its own and below what comparable buyers have paid, which is where the negotiation actually sits.