Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

The Orlando Magic and Tampa Bay Rays came out winners when ESPN The Magazine released its eighth annual Ultimate Standings, ranking all 122 major professional sports franchises in the U.S., last week.

The Magic, the top-ranked NBA team, were second overall behind Super Bowl Champion New Orleans, while the Rays were sixth overall and the second baseball team behind the No. 3 Los Angeles Angels.

ESPN The Magazine rated the teams in categories such as bang for the buck (most wins over the past three years, adjusted for revenues directly from fans), fan relations, ownership, affordability, stadium experience, player relations (effort, likability), coaching and title track (championships won or in contention for).

Most categories are subjective, but they’re a good indicator about how well each franchise is doing its job.

The Magic earned the highest score among all 122 franchises for bang for the buck over the past three years. The Magic played for the NBA championship last year and have been contenders each year since Stan Van Gundy took the coaching job three seasons ago. The Magic also scored high in fan relations, coaching, player relations and ownership.

The only factor that hurt the Magic was stadium experience, where Orlando ranked 96th. When the Magic move into the new Amway Center in October, that ranking will change dramatically for the better.

Give the Magic credit. Whether or not you agree with their decisions, the ownership does its best to put a winning product on the floor while at the same time trying to keep prices affordable. The team also is heavily involved in the community by sponsoring a variety of youth programs. That’s about all you can ask from the local pro franchise.

The Rays, despite playing in one of the worst venues in baseball (106th in stadium experience), ranked high because of bang for the buck (2nd), affordability (3rd) and fan relations (17th).

The Rays deserve extra credit for putting a competitive team on the field despite the handicap of having a small payroll in baseball, where AL East rivals New York and Boston annually break the bank in a sport with no salary cap.

Alas, the rest of the state’s pro franchises did not fare well in the Ultimate Standings.

After the Rays, you have to dive all the way to 58th place to find Florida’s next pro franchise, the Miami Dolphins.

The Fins earned mediocre rankings across the board except for coaching (31st). The stadium experience (96th) hurt.

The state’s other MLB team, the Florida Marlins, pulled in next at 65th despite an excellent score in title track (13th) and player relations (29th). But, playing in the Dolphins’ football stadium hurt (117th).

The Tampa Bay Lightning ranks 70th, hurt by a poor coaching track record (119th).

The Jacksonville Jaguars are 71st, but scored well in affordability (6th).   Central Florida football fans would probably dock the Jags a few more points in fan relations for declaring the Orlando area their secondary market and forcing local TV stations to broadcast Jaguars games at the expense of the Dolphins and Bucs.

But then, the Bucs are ranked a sorry 99th in the Ultimate Standings because of triple-digit scores in bang for the buck (100th), fan relations (103rd), ownership (106th) and coaching (104th). Mysteriously, the team still ranks 30th in title track. That’s a lot of goodwill for winning the Super Bowl seven seasons ago.

The Florida Panthers, a Miami-area hockey team that you may or may not have heard of, round out the Florida pro teams in 106th place, primarily because it was difficult to get beneath the cluster of NBA teams that resides at the bottom of the Ultimate Standings.

What validity these rankings have should be of concern to NBA Commissioner David Stern, who can’t be pleased to see his league represent six of the bottom seven spots in the rankings.

The venerable L.A. Clippers, for decades a punchline when the talk turned to inept franchises, is dead last at 122nd, scoring no higher than 91st in any of the six ratings categories.

The NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs are next to last at 121st, somehow managing to be more unaffordable (122) than even the New York  teams.

NBA squads took spots 116 through 120 with Minnesota, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York and Washington.

With NBA superstars like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade currently jetting around the country soliciting free agent bids and trying to arrange themselves on self-styled “super teams,” the league’s status as perhaps the least fan-friendly in pro sports isn’t getting better.

Add to that the distinct possibility that there will be a player’s lockout in 2011, and Stern has some work to do.

Maybe he should consult Orlando for a Magical solution.