Manchester United enjoying its roaring stock for the first time since it went public in August last year; its stock has soared by more than 24% in two weeks to redefine the valuation of English club. Record wise, it has now crossed the 3 billion mark and become the first sport’s club in the history to reach that level. NFL’s Dallas Cowboys are closely following it with little more than 2 billion and Real Madrid is third closely following soccer club with just under 2 billion in valuation. World known investor George Soros, who bought around 3.1 million shares of Red Devils when it was listed in the stock exchange, would now be a happy man by looking at his rising stocks. Initially, his move to invest in a soccer club was heavily criticized from every corner; perhaps many labeled him as an insane business tycoon who is risking his millions of dollars on an unstable sporting club.
America business magazine Forbes issued the latest valuations of top soccer clubs; it also mentioned the reasons why ManU could lead the riches’ tally by a comprehensive margin. Citing the major tie ups in the last year, Forbes added, “Despite a drop in first quarter earnings because of a reduction in television revenue, the appetite for shares of the 19-time English champion has increased due to better earnings, new sponsorship deals with Japan’s Kansai, and China Construction Bank, and the potential of much more lucrative English Premiership and Champions League payouts this year.”
The reason for last year’s high valued tie ups with various corporate groups is being linked with ManU magnificent run in the English premium league where it is on top of the leaderboard with a lead of 5 clear points from second place holder Manchester City. Notably, ManU could not perform well with its television revenues which have dropped on YoY basis coz of its early departure from Champions League; otherwise it would have been a completely different scenario for the EPL club where it could probably have crossed even a 3.5 billion mark. Anyways, Glazer family, the owners of EPL club, are the biggest money rollers by the recent surge in stock valuations, moreover other high net worth investors are equally benefited from the money rail ManU has triggered of late.
In the top ten highly valued teams, all major clubs are enlisted; however, American clubs like Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys are rather unusual names in the list.