We can’t talk in certainties but the crux of my point here is the purchase price renders this a totally different prospect.
I feel fairly certain that no single businessman will pay the mooted purchase price and then sit on that for years to come in the hope it will increase vastly considering football is a massively unstable footing to base such a massive investment on.
The vast growth in value has been seen in the time that the Glazers have been here. It would take many years of sustained success to sizeably increase our value from what we are looking at currently.
Teams like Everton, West Ham fit your ownership model far more imo. Buy low (but affordably) invest in the club and sell high years later.
That ship has sailed at United.
Read the article about why Jim Ratcliffe hasn’t approached Glazers to buy us and why instead he’s gone for an infinitely smaller purchase of Nice back in 2019.
We can’t talk in certainties but the crux of my point here is the purchase price renders this a totally different prospect.
I feel fairly certain that no single businessman will pay the mooted purchase price and then sit on that for years to come in the hope it will increase vastly considering football is a massively unstable footing to base such a massive investment on.
The vast growth in value has been seen in the time that the Glazers have been here. It would take many years of sustained success to sizeably increase our value from what we are looking at currently.
Teams like Everton, West Ham fit your ownership model far more imo. Buy low (but affordably) invest in the club and sell high years later.
That ship has sailed at United.
Read the article about why Jim Ratcliffe hasn’t approached Glazers to buy us and why instead he’s gone for an infinitely smaller purchase of Nice back in 2019.
The glazers only have one of 2 motivations to sell:
a) They feel the value has peaked and it's time to get out (either commercially or due to threat of legislation which might divest them etc)
b) They have serious enough cashflow problems.
Focusing on a) (as b is unlikely for now), my question to you would be this: If the glazers feel value has peaked, why would any other investor have a vastly different analysis and pick it up?
Especially in the current situation if it's a political football etc.
You'd more likely get somebody who invested for non financial reasons, like sportswashing.
I personally feel a figure is less important than asking people "why" somebody would want to purchase if the Glazers wanted to sell.
Wonder if Beckham could
Conor McGregor ? Serioulsly? Im all for Someone like Beckham Leading a consortium of Investors. But while McGregor has made Truck loads of money Especially with his whiskey not sure I would want him as an owner of Manchester United .
Just seems massively pessimistic to me.
You're sure it's possible to buy West Ham and make money but it can't be done with United.
You really think United's value has peaked? There's a myriad of reasons the Glazers might sell. It doesn't mean that's it for the club in terms of growth.
I don't think me, you or anyone really knows what football will look like in 20 years in terms of broadcasting and league structures. Now more than ever that seems up in the air.
So to say United's value has peaked, won't go up from here, is really short sighted to me. You can't possibly know that.
It’s not pessimistic just realistic.Just seems massively pessimistic to me.
You're sure it's possible to buy West Ham and make money but it can't be done with United.
You really think United's value has peaked? There's a myriad of reasons the Glazers might sell. It doesn't mean that's it for the club in terms of growth.
I don't think me, you or anyone really knows what football will look like in 20 years in terms of broadcasting and league structures. Now more than ever that seems up in the air.
So to say United's value has peaked, won't go up from here, is really short sighted to me. You can't possibly know that.
You didn't ask me but personally, I would agree with Wenger's view that when someone seriously wants to buy a club they don't make a big thing out of it in the media.
I expect if someone or a group eventually does make a realistic bid to buy the club, it's going to come out of left field.
looks like the best we can hope for is if the Glazers heavily invest in the team and we win a title or two. That would quiet fans down but at the same time they would feel entitled to more money if they ever decided to sell.
The only thing I could think of is Amazon so that they can exploit the clubs popularity.People are looking for a benevolent billionaire with good intentions for the club. Good in the sense that its run the way supporters want it to be.
We probably will have more luck in find a tooth fairy.
The problem is - the more mess the fans make, the more the value will drop - and the less interested they will be in selling. If United are to get rid of the owners, it has to be through legislation.
Not necessarily. Like some people have said, if you can make the value drop faster than they can extract value from the club and make it clear this will continue as long as they're around, you might be able to scare them into selling. Basically give them no hope of the value ever rising. Trouble is, that means harming the club financially in the short/mid term.
I think the key caveat in this is that, it's been reported for a while now that at least 4 of the siblings don't have any interest in Manchester United. Joel seems to be the driver and if our fan base really wants to turn the screw they could by disrupting games as seen yesterday. We could also make it difficult for Sky and BT to cover our games which would give Joel a jolt.But that analysis relies on the Glazers suddenly being surprised by their own business model, which seems unlikely doesn’t it?
Their central family business is sports team ownership. They own of the most valuable sports ‘franchises’ in the world and they have done so for 15 years knowing that each year the dividends they make are less than the overall sale price potential. Their business model isn’t suddenly going to be a reason for them to sell.
They have already realised that £22m is less than £4bn and honestly the tragedy of the whole thing is that we are so lacking in intelligent analysis of the ownership situation that utterly moronic dross like that is even paid attention to.
Everyone who owns any business ever makes less per year from dividends than the overall cost of the business. Everyone who buys a buys a business knows this will happen before yet buy it. To expect it to be the reason why a businessman will sell their business is just absurd
But that analysis relies on the Glazers suddenly being surprised by their own business model, which seems unlikely doesn’t it?
Their central family business is sports team ownership. They own of the most valuable sports ‘franchises’ in the world and they have done so for 15 years knowing that each year the dividends they make are less than the overall sale price potential. Their business model isn’t suddenly going to be a reason for them to sell.
They have already realised that £22m is less than £4bn and honestly the tragedy of the whole thing is that we are so lacking in intelligent analysis of the ownership situation that utterly moronic dross like that is even paid attention to.
Everyone who owns any business ever makes less per year from dividends than the overall cost of the business. Everyone who buys a buys a business knows this will happen before they buy it. To expect it to be the reason why a businessman will sell their business is just absurd
No one is buying our club for 4 billion who is seeking a return on their investment.
The potential problem with that is you run the risk of competing interests causing havoc in the club's operational and strategic direction.Or we force a sale of shares by the Glazers. A consortium finance by multimillionaires and a billionaires buy the majority of those shares without taking on full ownership. Glazers are ran out and like Bayern United are owned by multiple brands and businesses fighting for majority shares rather than having a singular lazy owner.
People are looking for a benevolent billionaire with good intentions for the club. Good in the sense that its run the way supporters want it to be.
We probably will have more luck in find a tooth fairy.
What you are overlooking is the opportunity cost of maintaining a supposed £4bn asset that gives you just £22m per year that you have to split 6 ways. Their end game would have been some form of a super league or clubs being allowed to individually negotiate broadcast rights and the like but as things stand owning the club doesn't make sense from a purely financial pov.But that analysis relies on the Glazers suddenly being surprised by their own business model, which seems unlikely doesn’t it?
Their central family business is sports team ownership. They own of the most valuable sports ‘franchises’ in the world and they have done so for 15 years knowing that each year the dividends they make are less than the overall sale price potential. Their business model isn’t suddenly going to be a reason for them to sell.
They have already realised that £22m is less than £4bn and honestly the tragedy of the whole thing is that we are so lacking in intelligent analysis of the ownership situation that utterly moronic dross like that is even paid attention to.
Everyone who owns any business ever makes less per year from dividends than the overall cost of the business. Everyone who buys a buys a business knows this will happen before they buy it. To expect it to be the reason why a businessman will sell their business is just absurd
I agree with this post.What you are overlooking is the opportunity cost of maintaining a supposed £4bn asset that gives you just £22m per year that you have to split 6 ways. Their end game would have been some form of a super league or clubs being allowed to individually negotiate broadcast rights and the like but as things stand owning the club doesn't make sense from a purely financial pov.
Back in the day when they took over the club was somewhat undervalued and its commercial appeal underexploited but right now we have to spend in excess of £100m per year just to keep the likes of Leicester, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea from taking our CL spot. Failure to maintain us as a title challenging outfit is already eating into our ability to maintain the value of sponsorships if the new shirt deal is anything to go by.
The end game for such a takeover is always increasing the value and selling it off at huge premium. The football landscape has changed dramatically with the takeover of City, Chelsea and PSG making it more expensive to maintain a club at its level efficiently.
Would around 200,000 fans be willing to put up £20k to purchase the club, with no return on their investment?
If you look at the reasons for buying a football club then at 4 billion none of them make that much sense.
1.Commercial/Profitable Return.
You would need 200 million clear profit every year to make this work.
Unless the game is regulated and wages/transfer fees are capped then this is a difficult target for any investor and would ultimately make the fans unhappy due to the elevated costs of season tickets, TV subscriptions, merchandise etc.
2. Political Gain.
Russians, Chinese, Arabs trying to take control of the club for various reasons. You have to question the motives for this. I still don't understand the motives of the Man City and PSG owners. Surely it has to be political influence and therefore promoting their own countries and ideals via club success. Again this is a poor model for fans as the club is effectively being used as a front.
3. Multiple Fan Ownership.
At 4 billion you would need 8 million fans putting up 500 quid each or 4 million if you went for a 50% ownership model.
Seems an impossible stretch and who would own the other 50% and for what reason.
4. Super Rich Fan
This would be the preferred option. A buyer with an emotional connection to the club, no desire to make huge profits, a fan pleaser.
4 billion is way to much to attract this type of person. Not going to happen unfortunately.
Looks like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place for eternity.
Generally shareholders will want long term returns, and should understand and promote re-investment back into the business to achieve this. The Glazers (or any other single owner) may have ulterior motives, for example trying to maximise short term returns before sale.Surely that's worse for the club? Fully publicly traded companies have to be accountable to only their shareholders - and shareholders only care about their return on investment. Who would the fans be protesting against then?
Okay, I’ll try again.
I don’t agree with classifying a ‘Head of State’ as a bloke. If anything, he should be classified as a country. And if we are classifying as a country, then the debate becomes political, and ethics become subjective based on what side of a particular story you are on. What we do know is that death and war happens, and all countries engage in it. That doesn’t mean we cannot have political views, but a political view and ‘MBS is a madman a psychopath and a murdering scumbag’ are different. America killed Osama Bin Laden without a trial. Barrack Obama isn’t a murderer as a result.
In short, is summarising the character of an individual by the actions carried out in the capacity of a head of state is a false equivalence. Beyond that, not agreeing with one countries war is the same on every side, and as old as time. We don’t agree with their war in Yemen, they don’t agree with ours in Iraq. I’m born and raised in Britain and still cannot compute that Britain sent troops to Argentina to fight Argentines for land in Argentina on the basis that it was apparently theirs, and not the Argentines. But I don’t charactarise Margaret Thatcher based on it. It’s a different topic, and one which can be disagreed with, but one I would personally separate from any individuals. Classifying Obama or MBS as ‘murderers’ would be simplistic, to me.
