When Sir Jim Ratcliffe, billionaire founder and chief executive of chemical organisation Ineos, bought 27. 7% of Manchester United in February for a business cost of $6. 5 billion, it was the highest value ever paid for a sports team in which the client also received exploitation rights. . . The deal, which cost $500 million more than Forbes estimated a year ago at the prominent English soccer club, not only paid tribute to Manchester United’s top operating profit of $187 million (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and a global fan base of more than $650 million, it also illustrates why 12 of the world’s 30 most valuable football organisations play in the Premier League. Forbes now costs Manchester United $6. 55 billion, Spain’s Real Madrid alone, which, at $6. 6 billion, is the highest-value team globally for the third year in a row.
England’s most sensible league, which in December signed a new national TV deal for the 2025-2026 to 2028-29 seasons for an average of $2. 1 billion a year, will make more than twice as much domestic broadcast revenue as any other football league. and almost twice as many as number two, Spain’s La Liga, if foreign broadcast deals are included.
Essentially, all European football leagues – barring the Premier League – take out or plan to take out loans that have no long-term value. Italy’s Serie A has been contemplating selling a stake in its media rights to private equity investors since 2020. In 2022, the French Ligue 1 sold 13% of its rights in a new subsidiary to CVC, allowing the Ligue 1 get advantages of a lot of money. injection in 2020. exchange for the payment of CVC dividends for broadcast rights, sponsorship rights and other applicable advertising contracts. Last October, France abandoned its broadcast rights auction because it had not won any bid matching Ligue 1’s minimum costs from 2024 to 2029. In early 2022, La Liga did something similar, selling 8. 2 % of a new advertising subsidiary to CVC. . Serie A also considered selling its broadcast rights to a private equity fund, but abandoned the idea. Meanwhile, in Germany, Bundesliga fans are protesting the sale of their broadcasting rights.
Headwinds from broadcast deals mean that on-field functionality is important for the world’s most productive football groups. The rating hierarchy is based more on a remote progression in the Champions League. In this year’s Champions League semi-finals, seven teams won more than $100. million: Real Madrid ($144 million), Paris Saint-Germain ($131 million), Borussia Dortmund ($130 million), Bayern Munich ($129 million), Manchester City ($118 million), Barcelona ($105 million) and Arsenal ($100 million). million). The winner of the final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund on June 1 will pocket another $21. 6 million.
Real Madrid has generated the maximum profit ($873 million) of any team and has won the Champions League five times in the last nine years. Sponsors can count on the team that will appear on screen in front of millions of football enthusiasts at many primary games. That’s why Real Madrid earns an average of $205 million a year from its sponsors, the highest figure in football according to Football. Not far behind in terms of sponsorship earnings are other groups that usually qualify for the Champions League: Barcelona ($189). million), Paris Saint-Germain ($158 million), Arsenal ($158 million), Manchester United ($154 million), Manchester City ($152 million), Chelsea ($126 million) and Bayern Munich ($119 million).
In the Premier League, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Fulham FC have higher sponsor earnings through new deals that started with the 2023-24 season. Newcastle have reached a new deal with Sela, worth around $30 million a year for 3 years, 4 times more than what the team earned in the past with Fun88. Aston’s $15 million a year deal with BK8 more than doubled its previous sponsorship with Cazoo, and Fulham’s $12. 5 million deal with SBOTop is 66% higher than its previous W88 sponsorship fee.
Despite slowing broadcast revenues in Europe, the average price of a football team now stands at $2. 3 billion, a 5. 1% increase from last year. European groups have long been global brands sought after by investors. Revenue for the 30 groups averaged $397 million, up 3% from last year. But operating profit averaged $36 million, up 57% from a year earlier. One of the reasons why profitability has increased is that several European groups kept player salaries at roughly the same point during the year. The 2022-23 season is like last year and a handful of them, such as Manchester United, Inter Milan and Juventus, particularly reduced player spending.
But being the elite on the pitch will be even more rewarding from next year, when the new Champions League format begins. The number of groups will increase from 32 to 36 and the number of matches from 125 to 189. As a result, UEFA has planned to increase television investments by a third.
The revenue and operating source of cash in the figures shown for the European groups are for the 2022-2023 season, converted to US dollars based on the average exchange rates for that season (1 euro = $1. 05, 1 pound sterling = 1. 21 dollars, 1 pound sterling = 1. 15 euros). For Major League Soccer groups, the figures are for the 2023 season, as published in Forbes’ annual MLS team results in February 2024. The revenue figures reflect the money the soccer team generates through broadcasting, advertising occasions and fit days. Team prices are commercial prices (fairness plus net debt) and come with the economics of the team’s stadium (but exclude the price of the real estate itself), based on comparable transactions. Since enterprise price is an unbiased measure in terms of capital structure, it allows Forbes to compare corporations (or in this case, football groups) with other debt and equity structures. The profit of Opescore is cash earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, player trades and player registration movements. The debt is made up of loans that bear interest for more than one year (including the stadium debt). The exchange rates used to convert equipment and debt prices to US dollars for the European groups were those of May 6, 2024 (1 euro = 1. 08 dollars, 1 pound sterling = 1. 25 dollars, 1 pound sterling = 1. 17 euros). Sources include annual reports and presentations from teams, team executives, football team investors, reports from credit rating companies, and sports bankers. The pricing and financial knowledge of the 8 MLS teams on our list were taken from our MLS reviews in February. To ensure that Forbes’ income and expense figures are comparable for each team, we rely on the Deloitte Football Money League and Swiss Ramble annual report to determine our figures.