Despite
losing the Premier League title to City rivals last season, Manchester United
still lay claims of another title, though the world’s most valuable sports
team. Forbes estimates Manchester United is now worth
$2.23 billion, 19% more than No. 2 Real Madrid, worth $1.88 billion.
Below are the ratings of sports teams that occupy the top ten spot
as released by Forbes.
#1 Manchester
United
Value: $2.23 billion
Owner: Glazer family
The Red Devils are the world's most valuable sports team and have a long
tradition of great play on the pitch. Manchester United has captured a record
19 English Premiership titles and claims to have 659 million fans worldwide.
Next up for the Red Devils: an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange to reduce
debt from Malcolm Glazer's purchase of the club in 2005.
#2 Real Madrid
Value: $1.88 billion
Owner: Club members
Real Madrid had the highest revenues of any soccer team during the 2010-11
season and was the most profitable team in all of sports during 2011, with
operating income of $214 million. Club members have owned and operated the team
since it was founded in 1902. Real won its record 32nd La Liga title in 2012,
led by its star winger Cristiano Ronaldo (above, center).
#3 New York Yankees
Value: $1.85 billion
Owner: Steinbrenner family
The Yankees are just part of a money making machine that also includes the YES
Network and Legends Hospitality. YES, the team's 34%-owned regional sports
channel, is the most profitable RSN in the country with operating income of
more than $200 million. Legends, the stadium management and concessions company
owned by the Yankees, Dallas Cowboys and Goldman Sachs, signed a deal last year
to sell season tickets at the San Francisco's 49ers new stadium. The enterprise
value for the Yankees, YES and Legends is estimated to be $5.5 billion.
#4 Dallas Cowboys
Value: $1.85 billion
Owner: Jerry Jones
Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones is a master salesman and has attracted the NBA
All-Star game, the Super Bowl, a Manny Pacquiao fight, soccer matches, concerts
and more to Cowboys Stadium since the $1.2 billion venue opened in 2009. It
will host the 2014 NCAA Men's Final Four as well. The stadium can hold 110,000
people, including standing room. One thing Jones has not been able to sell is
naming rights to the building, which could fetch $15 million annually.
#5 Washington
Redskins
Value: $1.56 billion
Owner: Daniel Snyder
The Redskins have made the playoffs only three times since Dan Snyder bought
the team in 1999. That hasn't stopped fans from flocking to FedEx Field and
making the Redskins the NFL's most profitable team in recent years. The 'Skins
paid a king's ransom in April of three first round draft picks and a second
round choice in a trade with the St. Louis Rams for the right to select Robert
Griffin III (#10 above) with the second overall pick. Griffin won the 2011
Heisman Trophy while at Baylor.
#6 Los Angeles
Dodgers
Value: $1.4 billion
Owner: Guggenheim Baseball
Frank McCourt sold the Dodgers in April through a bankruptcy court-led auction
to Guggenheim Baseball for $2 billion. The deal included an additional $150
million to create a joint venture with McCourt on the parking lots and land
around Dodger Stadium. The new ownership group includes Los Angeles Lakers'
great Magic Johnson, former president of the Atlanta Braves and Washington
Nationals Stan Kasten and film producer Peter Guber. Chicago financial services
firm Guggenheim Partners financed most of the deal. The new group paid a record
price for the franchise based on an impending new local TV deal that is
expected to be worth more than $3.5 billion in cash and equity.
#7 New England
Patriots
Value: $1.4 billion
Owner: Robert Kraft
The Patriots are one of the NFL's best-run teams on and off the field. The
Patriots have sold out every game at Gillette Stadium since it opened in 2002
and made the playoffs eight of the past nine years. Quarterback Tom Brady
(above) is just the second quarterback, after John Elway, to lead his team to
the Super Bowl five times. Brady's last trip to the Super Bowl ended in
disappointment when the Pats lost to the New York Giants for the second time in
five seasons in the big game.
#8 FC Barcelona
Value: $1.31 billion
Owner: Club members
Barcelona has won two UEFA Champions League titles over the past four seasons,
riding the golden feet of Lionel Messi (above). Barca's home stadium, Camp Nou,
has the biggest seating capacity of top European teams at 99,400. The team's
broadcasting revenue of $266 million was tops among all soccer teams in 2011.
#9 New York Giants
Value: $1.3 billion
Owners: John Mara, Steven Tisch
The Giants celebrated their second Super Bowl title in five seasons in
February, led by MVP Eli Manning (above). MetLife acquired naming rights to the
New Meadowlands Stadium last year, filling a glaring hole in the stadium's
financial picture from when it opened in 2010. MetLife was paying $7 million
annually as a cornerstone partner, but the naming-rights deal is expected to
cost more than $400 million over 25 years. It would represent the biggest
naming-rights deal for a current NFL stadium (Farmers Insurance has pledged $23
million per year if a new stadium is built in Los Angeles). The stadium, home
to both the Giants and Jets, is scheduled to host the 2014 Super Bowl.
#10 Arsenal FC
Value: $1.29 billion
Owner: Stan Kroenke
Arsenal has won the second-most FA Cups (10), just one fewer than Manchester
United. Match day revenue of $150 million in 2011 was fourth highest among
soccer teams.The Gunners' commercial revenue was $74 million in 2011, but got a
boost last season due to new sponsorship agreements with brewer Carlsberg and
Betsson, the gaming company.
REPORT ACCORDING TO FORBES
Meanwhile, Manchester United fans
will once again get a chance to own a piece of the iconic club as the Glazer
family filed plans this month for an initial public offering on the New York
Stock Exchange. The Glazers took the club private in 2005 in a leveraged buyout
worth $1.47 billion. (The team traded on the London Stock Exchange before then.)
Don’t expect to be
picking the next manager if you buy shares. The Glazers intend to keep control
of the club through a dual-class share structure, where the Glazers’ shares
will be worth 10 votes apiece, while the public gets one vote for each share.
Dual-class shares are unusual, but a number of high-profile companies,
including Facebook, LinkedIn and The New York Times, use them to retain control
at the top while they sell ownership stakes to the public. With the offering,
the team can reduce its hefty debt load, which stood at $663 million as of
March.
Manchester United
has a host of lucrative sponsorships in place. Insurer Aon pays $31 million a
year to put its name on the team’s jerseys in a deal that runs through 2014.
Last year, DHL Express inked a four-year deal with the club worth a reported
$62 million to sponsor Manchester United’s practice jerseys. It is the first
case of a practice jersey sponsorship deal for soccer in the U.K. Nike manages
the team’s merchandise sales and the agreement is worth a minimum of $39
million annually for Manchester United based on overall sales in a deal through
2015.
Soccer clubs hold
the top two spots among the world’s most valuable franchises, but it is
American football teams that dominate the rest of the top 50. All 32 NFL teams
made the cut, led by the Dallas Cowboys, worth $1.85 billion, tied with the New
York Yankees for third overall. The Cowboys are the kings of the NFL thanks to
their $1.2 billion stadium, which generates more than $100 million annually
from premium seating and nearly $60 million from sponsors like AT&T, Bank
of America, Ford Motor and PepsiCo.
The future looks
even brighter for NFL teams thanks to a new labor agreement, as well as a new
round of TV contracts. The league and its players endured a four-month lockout
last year, but no regular season games were lost. The new collective bargaining
agreement ensures labor peace for 10 years and gives owners a bigger piece of
the pie, as players settled for a salary cap based on 48% of total revenues
versus roughly 54% in previous years.
The NFL inked
extensions to its TV deals with CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC last year. The nine-year
deals (ESPN is for eight years) start with the 2014 season and are worth $5
billion a year collectively, a 62% bump on the prior contracts. The average NFL
team is worth $1.04 billion.
Major
League Baseball landed seven teams on the list (same as soccer), led by the
Yankees. As Forbes pointed out in a cover story earlier this year, baseball is flush
with TV money thanks to a boom among regional sports networks hungry for
content. The Yankees’ YES Network, which is 34% owned by the team, is the most
profitable RSN in the U.S. generating more than $200 million in operating
income last year. The team is also a cash cow with $330 million in ticket
revenue in 2011, including luxury suites. The Red Sox had the next highest gate
at $190 million.
Basketball and
Formula 1 both placed two teams among the 50 most valuable franchises. The Los
Angeles Lakers jumped 13 spots and are now ranked No. 35 with a value of $900
million, up 40% from last year. As with baseball, revenue growth is tied to TV.
The Lakers struck a deal with Time Warner Cable beginning with the 2012-13
season valued at an average of $200 million a year, compared to $35 million
under their old agreement. Time Warner will show games on two regional sports
channels, one in English and one in Spanish. The Lakers have by far the biggest
audience on TV, averaging 258,000 households on Fox Sports West last year.
F1 powerhouse, Ferrari, ranks No. 15 with a value of $1.1 billion, up 3% from last
year. Ferrari extended its $52 million-a-year sponsorship deal this year with
Spanish bank Santander. This follows Ferrari’s blockbuster extension last year
with sponsor Marlboro worth as much as $500 million over three years. McLaren’s
value fell 2% this year to $800 million as main backer Vodafone is reviewing
its sports sponsorship commitments. McLaren would be hard pressed to replace
Vodafone at comparable levels. McLaren also faces the free agency of Lewis
Hamilton, who is one of the most marketable drivers in the sport. Hamilton’s
contract expires at the end of 2012.
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