By Mark Baber
July 17 – Real Madrid tops the annual Forbes list of the world’s most valuable sports teams, for the second year in a row, with Barcelona and Manchester United swapping places from last year in second and third place respectively.
Forbes, which calculates the value of the teams based enterprise values (equity plus debt) based on current stadium deals (unless a new stadium is pending) estimates the value of Real Madrid at $3.44 billion (£2 billion), Barcelona at $3.2 billion, and Manchester United at $2.81 billion.
The New York Yankees are in fourth place, but rest of the list is dominated by teams from the NFL who occupy 30 of the top 50 slots.
The football (soccer) teams on the list include Bayern Munich who are in seventh place, valued at $1.85 billion, Arsenal in sixteenth place, valued at $1.331 billion, Chelsea in 48th place, valued at $867 million, Manchester City in 49th place, valued at $863 million and AC Milan in 50th place, valued at $856 million.
The new list from Forbes comes out the day after Forbes reported that, following the record deal with Adidas, “Wall Street now affords United an enterprise value of $3.6 billion. Math: market value ($3.05 billion) + long term debt ($613 million) – cash ($57 million). “
Forbes reported, “Wall Street may be right. Although United will not participate in the lucrative 2014-15 Champions League …the team now commands both the richest uniform and shirt deals in the world (the Manchester City $63 million a year shirt deal with Etihad Airlines is excluded from the table because it also includes stadium naming rights).”
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