ManU FInancial Giant

[ptw]

Interesting article in this week's Economist on ManU.

There were 2 good lines which might be appropriate:

Alan Sugar (1st prize goes to the person who can identify his other claim to fame) quoted as saying that all the new money in football (eg TV rights) is like Prune Juice. You put it in...it goes straight through...and out the other end. They have clubs with hundreds of millions of pounds of revenue and they are still going out the back door as costs are going up faster than revenues (mainly player payments). A leason there for any club which thinks that TV money will be the saviour....just look at the hole it is already burning in the AFL's pockets.

Secondly they expect TV rights money to go down in the next negotiation. One reason is that ratings are actually falling. Why ????


The answer given was that the premiership was decided by Christmas.


Hmmmmmmmm.


ptw

 

[IlGino]

Spot on....
I moonlight with the soccer in the off-season but have lost all interest in the English variety because of Man U's domination. Although many people bad the AFL.... the salary cap and the draft have kept the comp alive!

Go BCFC, Boro, ASRoma, Home Utd & Brisbane Strikers!

 

[Danny Chook Fan Club]

Originally posted by ptw:
Alan Sugar (1st prize goes to the person who can identify his other claim to fame)

Warning!! Spurs fan alert!

Alan Sugar has two claims to fame:

1. Being the owner of Amstrad
2. Being a tight bastard who wouldn't spend any money on decent players.

What do I win?

------------------
He's blonde, he's quick
He's got a massive ... err ... kick
Danny Chook! Danny Chook!

 

[Dan26]

Manu have just aligned themselves with the New York Yankees. What a sporting power that could be !

 

[IlGino]

Sugar's a tightwad.... so that's whose running the Strikers?

Actually good point mate... I am just reading this book about Sugar and his dealings with El tel.....

 

[ptw]

Danny

if I still had it you would win my old Amstrad 128D (complete with 3 inch floppy - no crude jokes please !)

Unfortunately for us both I no longer have it so you get nothing.

oh well....

ptw

 

[Danny Chook Fan Club]

Originally posted by IlGino:
Actually good point mate... I am just reading this book about Sugar and his dealings with El tel.....

"Sick As A Parrot"? I'm reading that now too.


------------------
He's blonde, he's quick
He's got a massive ... err ... kick
Danny Chook! Danny Chook!

 

[Shinboners]

Originally posted by ptw:
Secondly they expect TV rights money to go down in the next negotiation. One reason is that ratings are actually falling. Why ????

The answer given was that the premiership was decided by Christmas.

That answer is wrong. During Liverpool's dominance in the 70s and 80s, there was no loss of interest by fans even though plenty of championships were decided well before the end of the season.

The main reasons why people have turned off are:

1. Corporatisation of the game amongst the giant clubs. It's becoming harder and harder for everyday people to get tickets for clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal.

2. Overkill of the game. The Champions League is a case in point. There was an extra round robin round included this season. It was included just so there could be more games on TV, not as a mechanism to help find the best club. Previously the game was on Saturday with European games on Wednesday. Now you can find games on every night except for Friday.

3. The players. They're paid so much now and with so many imported players arriving in England, fans have started to lose the ability to identify with the players.

By the way, the world's richest club isn't Manchester United. It's Dynamo Kiev from the Ukraine. Being a sports club, they are exempt from taxes, and so, any major business in the Ukraine is done through this club. They even have a gold export license. They only run the football club enough to ensure their tax free status.

 

[choppyhard]

Ptw,

Good call, you are spot on I tried to make the same point in another topic but you have nailed it.

 

[Dipper]

Speaking as an English football fan I can say that people do lose a sense of identification with loads of foreign players at their clubs but more than that I think people lose identification with players who are in their early 20s & r earning £25k per week & r not as good as players who played for the club 10-15 years ago who were maybe earning £1k per week.It pisses me off that clubs get more & more money from TV which u would think would help to keep ticket prices down BUT in fact ticket prices go up & all the money just goes to paying the players more.
On Man U being way out on their own this is not a direct result of them being the biggest club but of having a great manager & the best youth system in the world.When Ferguson goes they will not dominate to the extent that they have done-if u look at Inter Milan in Italy they regularlry spent more money than any other side over the last 10 years & yet they have had limited success.Money isn't everyrthing when it comes to creating a dynasty it maybe boring now but it won't go on forever-remember when Liverpool were dominating that Man U were still the richest club

 

[Pessimistic]

I have a book at home that says United were not always rich. The Manchester council bailed them out a couple of times and they had to play games for a priod at the hated enemy Manchester city's ground.

It seems they grew such a big following after sympathy for the Munich Air Disaster
Recently they have been astute. I read that they have 100 people employed in their merchandising operation alone.

So if an AFL club went on to become a relative 'manchester united' it might not come from the obvious suspects