🌎 What to Make of the Most Valuable Soccer Clubs

The rankings are out, now let’s analyze the growth of these clubs.

About a week ago, Sportico released their popular world rankings of the 50 most valuable soccer clubs in 2024. And now with the Champions League Final (the top tournament played to crown the best team in Europe) set for June 1st between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund — one of the top two clubs in their respective countries (Germany and Spain) — let’s take some time to run through this list. How are these rankings assembled? What did we learn about the top portion of the rankings and where the money comes from? What surprises, if any, did we find while analyzing?

Let’s get after it…

How are these rankings put together?

• To assemble these rankings, Sportico calculated each team’s revenue, using public financial statements, Deloitte’s Football Money League publication, and their own estimates where information was not available.

  • They also included real estate assets (stadiums, practice facilities, etc.) and other related businesses in the valuation.

  • They also calculated total team revenues, but that does not include transfer fees & value added taxes. Instead it consists of three main buckets: broadcast, commercial, and matchday — while also using team-specific multipliers based on multiple factors, including: historical sales, market size, strength of brand, on-field performance (historical and recent), terms of facility lease, debt burden, as well as expected future team and league economics.

    • Broadcast: Largely from both domestic and international media deals. While prize money from competitions (i.e. Champions League) is also included.

      • For example: Manchester City had the highest broadcast revenue for the 2022-23 season at $359M, because they won the treble (Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League titles). MLS clubs earned less than $10M last year from broadcast revenue.

    • Commercial: Usually from sponsorships, advertising, corporate hospitality, and non-matchday events. It also includes the team’s jersey sponsor and kit deal.

      • For example: Emirates pays Real Madrid over $70M/year to display its name on their jerseys.

      • Manchester United’s Adidas deal is worth at least $100M/year while it also includes the rights to sell merchandise globally stamped with the Adidas logo.

      • Germany’s Bayern Munich generated a high of roughly $440M in commercial revenue through partners like Deutsche Telekom, Adidas, Audi, and Allianz.

    • Matchday: From ticket sales, membership income, cup competitions, and preseason tickets, which is usually the smallest revenue component for European teams.

      • FC Barcelona was first in match-day revenue for the 2022-23 season with $200M.

What’s so interesting about these rankings?

• MLS is thriving. We’ll give you one guess as to which soccer league has the most representatives in the top 50…ok sure, you might’ve gotten it from our summary in bold. But no way you would’ve guessed it otherwise 😉. 20 clubs in Sportico’s list are from Major League Soccer (MLS) — that’s just under 70% of the entire league.

  • (See Table 1) LAFC (~$1.2B) are the highest-ranked MLS club at 15th, but Atlanta United, Inter Miami, LA Galaxy and New York City FC round out the top 20 as well. What do all these have in common? 🙋🏻‍♀️ Yes, Susie they’re all major metropolitan cities in the U.S.

  • However, smaller market clubs aren’t doing so poorly themselves: Austin FC (21st), Portland Timbers (30th), Columbus Crew (37th), FC Cincinnati (38th), and Nashville SC (40th).

• It might seem odd because revenues in MLS are low, its clubs are not usually profitable, and it’s not like they can compete for UEFA’s lucrative prize pot in its continent-wide competitions (i.e. Champions League).

• So why are all these clubs within the top 50?

• Well…it might be due to long-term potential, where MLS clubs are essentially better positioned than mid-tier European clubs.

  • MLS clubs don’t have to fear relegation, which means they can continuously compete for championships giving them a higher income floor.

    • We’re already seeing growth in season-ticket sales (+15%) and revenue (+25%).

  • Popularity has also been growing (thank you, Lionel Messi). Which lead to MLS signing a lucrative 10-year, $2.5B TV deal with Apple in 2022.

    • And let’s not forget, the 2026 World Cup is coming to North America, which means more eyes will be on the development and strides the game has made within the continent.

• American owners seeing lovely returns. We don’t know what’s in the water here, but it might be time to do some tests because apparently American soccer owners really know how to prop up the values of their clubs.

  • On top of 19 MLS clubs, another 8 clubs among the 50 are at least part-owned by American individuals or companies, including Manchester United (1st), Liverpool (4th), Arsenal (8th), Chelsea (10th), AC Milan (14th), Lyon (23rd), and Roma (24th).

  • That gives the total number of clubs on the list at 27, or 54% of the total 🇺🇸.

• Premier League clubs take the cake. After the MLS, the English Premier League (EPL) comes in with the second most clubs on the list with 9.

  • Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City (6th), Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur (9th), Chelsea, West Ham United (27th), Newcastle United (32nd) and Aston Villa (44th).

  • Manchester United is valued at $6.2B, about $140M more than Real Madrid, making them the most valuable football club in the world.

    • However, they haven’t won an EPL trophy since the 2012-13 season, and are currently ranked 8th in the standings with three games remaining 😬…it shows how strong their brand carries throughout the sport.

    • What’s even more interesting: 5 clubs (Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Man City, PSG) produce more revenue than United’s $778M (see Table 3).

      • Due to their global fanbase, position in the world’s most competitive league, massive deal with Adidas, and INEOS’ recent acquisition of 25% of the club for $1.3B all helped their valuation.

  • Even the low to mid-tier EPL clubs have shown signs of growth.

    • West Ham, based out of East London, is worth ~$725M. Because of their location and large market, they do well when it comes to commercial revenue. They also locked in an extremely good stadium deal, which hosted the 2012 Olympic Games.

    • Newcastle is valued at $700M and played in the Champions League this season.

    • Aston Villa is valued at $600M and is set to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

• La Liga too dominant at the top. The Spanish soccer league (La Liga) has two of the top three most valuable and popular teams in Real Madrid (~$6.1B) and FC Barcelona ($~5.3B). And with Atletico at 13th ($1.6B), the total of these three alone ($13B) is bigger than any league, except for the EPL and MLS (see Table 2).

  • This backs up the common narrative that La Liga is too top-heavy with a major competitive imbalance.

  • It even shows in their average stadium capacity where La Liga averages ~83% compared to the EPL at ~97%.

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Quick Hitters

• ⛹🏻‍♀️ Bring on more news from the WNBA! Today it was announced the WNBA’s newest team will be known as the Golden State Valkyries, which will start in the 2025 season. The Valkyries are the WNBA’s first expansion team since the Atlanta Dream in 2008 and will play at San Francisco’s Chase Center, home to the Golden State Warriors, while also sharing the same owner, Joe Lacob. Wtf is a “Valkyrie”? Great question…

  • “Valkyries” are female warriors from Norse mythology.

  • Fun Fact: “Operation Valkyrie” was also the name of an assassination plot by German elites on Adolf Hitler during World War II 😂.

• 🛩️ Oh we’re not done with you yet, WNBA! Last week, commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the league will finally move away from commercial flights and to entirely charter flights this year. Engelbert estimated that charter flights will cost the league ~$25M annually for the next two years. The league spent $4M on charter flights in 2023, according to the AP. Under current rules, teams fly commercial with the exceptions of the playoffs, Commissioner’s Cup championship, and back-to-back games.

  • Remember the short list of WNBA players with signature shoes? Well get that pen out and add another name to the list. Because Las Vegas Aces star and 2x MVP, A’ja Wilson, announced a signature shoe deal with Nike where her shoe will be called the "A'One," according to ESPN. The shoe and the rest of Wilson's signature collection will launch in 2025.

• 👦🏼 Former NFL star, 3x Pro Bowler, and recently turned Fox Sports broadcaster, Greg Olsen, has closed on a $4.5M seed round for his new youth sports content and commerce company, Youth Inc. The hope is to use this new seed round to boost the platform and become a one-stop shop for customers to experience premium media content or collecting their favorite team’s uniform while also offering B2B services including helping larger youth sports organizations manage its merchandise functions.