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The lowdown

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Football club finances part 1

Investors are taking a cue from McDonald’s Happy Meals. The FIFA World Cup means that interest in football is at its four-yearly peak. McDonald’s knows that it is easier to sell Happy Meals when they come with a football-related toy. Some think it may also be a good time to sell much larger football-related assets.

The Glazer family, owners of Manchester United, announced a week ago that they are open to selling the club. They are seeking a record valuation and so have chosen their timing well. Also newly on the market are Liverpool FC and French Ligue 1 club Paris St Germain.

How much could Man Utd be sold for? It’s difficult to say, as some buyers see the purchase of a football club as a public good rather than a business venture and so standard methods of valuation may not apply. We can at least say that the club is likely to be worth much more than £2.5bn – the price at which EPL rival Chelsea was sold to a consortium in May this year. Much more because Man Utd has the largest global fan base in football.

The challenge is in monetizing that fan base. While the EPL is the world’s largest professional soccer league, with revenue of €7.1 billion projected for the 2022/23 season, it is not easy for a club to turn a profit. Unlike the NFL, the EPL does not have a salary cap and so the spending required to remain in the top flight is immense.

Alternative sources of revenue do exist if you are willing to think outside of the box. Take, for instance, Welsh football club Wrexham AFC. After Hollywood celebrity Ryan Reynolds and It's Always Sunny actor Rob McElhenney purchased the club for a price reported to be in the low millions, they began filming the docuseries ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ which premiered to very positive reviews on Disney+. So perhaps the play here for potential investors is to buy a club from the dollar menu and build it up, rather than going straight for the Big Mac?

The content we're consuming today

• TechCrunch: Lessons for raising $10M without giving up a board seat

• CNBC: How drought cost America’s cotton industry billions

• The Economist: Has China reached the peak of its powers? ($)

Off-balance sheet items

• Forget Spotify Wrapped, it’s all about your personal festival lineup this year, with Spotify Instafest. Instafest essentially takes your Spotify data for the year and creates a festival poster based on your most-listened-to artists. Good luck sharing with your friends without judgement.

The bottom line