By Mark Baber
April 18 – Real Madrid has displaced Manchester United as the world’s most valuable soccer club in the new Forbes list.
This is the first time since Forbes started tracking football team values in 2004 that Manchester United has not ranked first.
Real Madrid, which posted revenue of $650 million during the 2011-12 season, is worth $3.3 billion. Real’s generated operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and player trading) of $134 million, are more than any football team and second only to the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys ($227 million) among all sports teams.
Manchester United has a $3.17 billion valuation, an impressive increase from 2005 when the Glazer family bought the club for $1.47 billion. In third spot, Barcelona’s value has doubled over the past year to $2.6 billion.
The top 20 teams on the list are worth an average of $968 million, an increase of 26% over last year. According to Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2013/04/17/soccers-most-valuable-teams-real-madrid-dethrones-manchester-united-from-top-spot-at-3-3-billion/) their team values are enterprise values (equity plus debt) that are based on multiples of revenue that teams get from television, premium seating, media, licensing, merchandise and concessions.
Due to the new television deal for the Barclays Premier League, which Forbes have somehow factored in, five of the top 10 spots on the Forbes list belong to English teams with Arsenal, valued at $1.33 billion, now ranked fourth. Chelsea ranks seventh at $901 million, Manchester City, worth $689 million is in ninth spot and Liverpool, valued $651 million, is now ranked 10th.
Brazil’s Corinthians are the first non-European team on the list, currently ranked 16 with a value of $358 million.
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