Forbes: World's Richest Clubs

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Guardian

Forbes rates Manchester United top of world sport's rich list
• Manchester United valued by Forbes at £1.2bn
• Real Madrid and Arsenal also make top 10
)James Callow guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22

Manchester United remain the most valuable sporting club in the world, according to Forbes.com.

The US-based business publisher released its list of the world's most valuable teams yesterday, with the Premier League club valued at $1.84bn (£1.2bn).

The Dallas Cowboys NFL operation were second at $1.65bn (£1.1bn). The New York Yankees, Washington Redskins, New England Patriots, Real Madrid, New York Giants, Arsenal, New York Jets and Houston Texans completed the top 10.

United's lofty standing is in spite of the club's heavy load of debt, with Forbes factoring in endorsements, merchandise sales, sponsorship and television revenues when considering a company's value.

Forbes rates Tiger Woods as the top earning athlete, with an estimated annual income of $30m. The world No1 golfer is followed by the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr in second and the basketball star Kobe Bryant in third.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/22/manchester-united-forbes-rich-list

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FORBES

The World's Most Valuable Teams And Athletes
Michael K. Ozanian and Kurt Badenhausen, 07.21.10, 06:00 PM EDT
The SportsMoney 50-50 ranks the world's most valuable teams and athletes.
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Slide Show: The 50 Most Valuable Teams In Sports
Slide Show: The 50 Top-Earning Athletes In Sports

The Los Angeles Lakers won the National Basketball Association title again in June, but the real winner was Philip Anschutz, who owns one-fourth of the team. You could say he's a bigger winner than the extravagantly paid Kobe Bryant, who pulls down $23 million a year from the team and another $25 million from endorsements, making him the third-best-paid athlete in the world, behind Tiger Woods and boxer Floyd Mayweather. Phil Mickelson is fourth.

Bryant creates real estate value. Having taken the Lakers to five titles since he joined the team in 1996, he has helped turn the Staples Center, which Anschutz controls, into the most profitable sports venue in the U.S. And without the Staples Center, Anschutz could not have built L.A. Live, the $2.5 billion entertainment center adjacent to the arena. The Lakers are the most valuable team in the NBA and the 49th most valuable in sports, worth $607 million.

Slide Show: The 50 Most Valuable Teams In Sports
www.forbes.com/2010/07/20/most-valuable-athletes-and-teams-business-sports-sportsmoney-fifty-fifty-teams_slide.html

Slide Show: The 50 Top-Earning Athletes In Sports
www.forbes.com/2010/07/20/most-valuable-athletes-and-teams-business-sports-sportsmoney-fifty-fifty-athletes_slide.html

Here you have the grandest example of how the traditional sports business model--where ticket sales determine the pecking order of team values within each league, and a player's value is captured by what his team pays him--is being replaced by a new formula. Now regional sports networks, modern stadiums, sponsorships, videogames and even reality television use teams and athletes as entertainment brands. Players and owners are in effect partners in a joint venture, where a portion of each dollar an owner pays a player is also an investment in a related business.

We depict this phenomenon in a new list: the SportsMoney 50-50. It ranks the world's most valuable teams and athletes.
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The SportsMoney 50-50 includes teams from five sports: baseball (with 5 teams rich enough to make the cut), basketball (2 teams), football (all 32 NFL teams--credit national TV deals worth $4 billion annually), motorsports (2 teams) and soccer (9 teams). For the athletes we factored in salaries, bonuses, prize money, endorsements, appearance fees and licensing income earned over the past 12 months. Athletes from nine sports made the cut, with NBA players making up 30% of the list. Americans dominate, but there are 16 different nationalities represented.

We estimate the value of England's Manchester United at $1.8 billion, making it not just the richest soccer team but also the biggest property in all of sports. Over the past decade ManU, currently owned by the Glazer family, has used high-priced talent like David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo to attract a worldwide core fan base of 139 million.

Here's the payback: Nike ( NKE - news - people ) will pay the team $470 million over 13 years plus a 50% share of profits on specific merchandise through 2015. Beginning next season ManU will have a new shirt sponsorship with Aon ( AOC - news - people ) worth $34 million annually over four years, 50% more than its previous deal with AIG. MUTV, the club's dedicated television channel, is shown in 192 million homes.

As ManU's celebrity grew, so did the Beckham's value. The 35-year-old is no longer a great player, but he's still a great brand-- fifth on our list of top earners, bringing in $43.7 million from endorsements of Adidas ( ADDDY.PK - news - people ), Yahoo ( YHOO - news - people ) and others, plus his salaries playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy in the U.S. and A.C. Milan in Italy.

www.forbes.com/2010/07/20/most-valuable-athletes-and-teams-business-sports-sportsmoney-fifty-fifty.html