Manchester United is not for sale. But it’s the same way that everything is for sale if the offer is high enough.
The rumors started this week with a tweeta funny story of a billionaire that he quickly shot down he himself. But almost as soon as Elon Musk walked away, the sharks flew around.
Jim Ratcliffe, a British billionaire, was the first to stay out, saying he would be interested in buying the team if it was in fact for sale. An American private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, is said to be in talks about a minority stake acquisition. Money won’t be an issue. Ratcliffe, the president of Ineos, is one of the richest men in the world. Apollo has about half a trillion dollars under management.
But drowning in the whirlpool of breathless reports seems to be an important warning: Manchester United really isn’t for sale.
Or is it?
This does not appear to be a market leading moment at United. The team is in last place in the English Premier League, having its worst start in more than a century. It uses a team of players who inspire more mockery than reverence. Its fans now organize weekly protests against the team’s Florida-based owners, the Glazer family. However, despite its difficulties, there may not be a sports franchise more coveted anywhere on earth than Manchester United.
This is one of the biggest football teams anywhere that can be fully owned. It plays in the most popular soccer league in the world. Its reach extends to every corner of the earth. It’s very simple: There are few brands in any field as strong as Manchester United.
But rare assets are notoriously difficult to value through traditional market fundamentals. For example, United’s share price – it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange – would suggest the club is worth $2.23 billion, a figure far below the record $3 billion. dollars that a team led by the California-based Clearlake foundation paid this spring to its Premier League rival Chelsea FC
But Chelsea is not Manchester United, that doesn’t make any sense. Yes, it was successful. Yes, it also employs some of the world’s top players. But in terms of global reach, popularity and brand power, the club cannot compare with United. What Chelsea’s selling price has proven, however, is that when it comes to the valuations of elite football clubs, what’s on the balance sheet is rarely taken into account.
Chelsea lost more than $1 million a week under its former owner, Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich. It needs a new stadium and will require tens of millions more in spending each season to maintain a competitive roster. Its purchase price followed a public auction that attracted interest from around the world.
For Manchester United, the list of suitors will be even longer, and even more public. Ratcliffe and Apollo may have been the first. They won’t be the last.
Ratcliffe’s approach is perhaps the best guide to what can happen. It seems that he did not attempt to contact the Glazers directly, or even contact their bankers. Instead, he went straight to the media and suggested that he would be willing to buy even a part of United, with the goal of one day buying it all back.
“We’re interested in the club, if it goes on sale,” a ready Ratcliffe spokesman told The New York Times on Thursday. The tactic unleashed a base of popular support, and fueled a new wave of abuse against existing owners.
For the Glazers, who have been besieged for much of their tenure, selling off a minority could make sense. It could allow them to defuse growing fan animosity – many supporters have never forgiven the Glazers for the debt piled up by the previously debt-free club in the acquisition. had their £800m leverage in 2005, the kind of deal the Premier League is currently looking for. outlaws – while increasing the overall value of the group. That number will almost certainly be higher than United’s share price might suggest.
Despite their poor performance for nearly a decade, United still make more money than nearly every other team in the world of football. Revenue has more than tripled under the Glazers, reaching a high of £627 million ($756 million) in 2019. If Chelsea is worth $3 billion on the open market, United, for popularity, potential Their monetization and iconic status, are worth far more, perhaps even doubling, some experts say.
At the same time, the scale of negative sentiment among Manchester United supporters towards the Glazer family is hard to overstate. For more than a decade, fans have rallied against them at matches and in street rallies; once, they even burned an effigy of the late family patriarch, Malcolm Glazer. And when the club flirted with a proposed European Super League last year, United fans stormed the team’s stadium and protest on the field.
But through it all – for almost two decades – the Glazers have continued, holding what is in many ways a rare property like a priceless canvas, the thrill of watching the value of their investments soar and with the traces that come with owning one of the most famous football teams in the world.
It is unclear whether all six of Glazer’s siblings, who were transferred ownership of the team by their father upon his death, share the same commitment to own Manchester United. Brothers Joel and Avram are the most active, directly involved in the team’s decision-making process. But a partial sale could allow less invested family members to cash in on a premium and leave the rest with a valuation that is almost certainly the highest ever paid for a franchise. sports trade.
For now, the Glazers, as has been customary for nearly two decades, have not made a word of their plans publicly. A Manchester United spokesman declined to comment on Thursday.
And now, at least officially, Manchester United is not for sale. Glazer’s banker, the London-based Rothschild & Co., 200-year-old consulting firm, is not actively soliciting bids. But so did Abramovich, even as he spent years quietly directing offers to New York banker Joe Ravitch, who finally sold Chelsea this spring.
It is possible that things will work out at Manchester United. There will come a time when the time and the price are right, for the most unpopular bosses in English football history to cash in on what will go down as one of the most profitable deals in sports history. .
It cost Manchester United more than a billion pounds – interest, debt repayments and dividends – to be owned by the Glazer family. Most fans will weigh billions more, this time in the form of a final check, a price worth paying to get rid of them.
