04/26/24
January 21, 2007
Liverpool Canadiens?: American George Gillett Jr., owner of the Montreal ice hockey team and former owner of the Harlem Globetrotters (?!), has reportedly made a bid for the Reds that tops the Dubai royal family's earlier offer.
posted by worldcup2002 to soccer at 09:56 PM - 6 comments
I believe that the £170MM is for control of the club only; the whole purchase price would include assumed debt and presumably other assets and would be a much higher figure. According to this article, the total Dubai bid was £450MM (with about £150MM for control of the shares of the club only v. the £170MM offered by Gillett) -- so the total package offered by Gillett presumably beats that. Assuming a total cost of around £450MM, that comes out to just under US$900MM, which would make Liverpool a more valuable franchise than just about any North American sports team, save a few NFL teams.
posted by holden at 10:48 PM on January 21, 2007
Alright, that makes more sense.
posted by chicobangs at 06:57 AM on January 22, 2007
This is off topic, but damn, I never would have thought those NFL teams to be that valuable. What with the parity in the league, and a new pair of teams in the Super Bowl practically every year, it would seem difficult for teams to gather what the marketing people like to call "mind share". What's the explanation for the value that these teams have gathered? Given they only play 16 regular season games per year, it goes far beyond ticket sales and tv revenues.
posted by psmealey at 07:53 AM on January 22, 2007
it goes far beyond ticket sales and tv revenues. Add in merchandising, 2 home preseason exhibition games that in the top markets sell out, concession sales and parking at the 10 home games (including exhibitions), local endorsement deals, etc., etc., and you have a real cash cow. One of the reasons that some teams have problems financially is that they do not own or control their home stadium.
posted by Howard_T at 08:33 AM on January 22, 2007
According to this (somewhat dated) piece, the two big factors in American football franchise values are the TV revenues and team ownership of stadiums. (Stadium ownership is obviously a factor in the fact that the Houston Texans, with a lengthening record of futility and a fairly short run to build up any "goodwill" or brand equity, if you will, are the third most valuable franchise in North American sports.) In assigning franchise values, Forbes uses a formula of annual revenues multiplied by 4.
posted by holden at 11:28 AM on January 22, 2007
170 million pounds? For one of the dozen or so premier franchises on the planet? And that includes the stadium, right? To my (extremely uncultured) eyes, that's a bargain. I would have guessed on a number in the 220-240 range, given the immediate marketing opportunities and the worldwide growth in popularity of the EPL in the last few years.