Glazer's ManU: Success or failure $-wise?

Discussion in 'Soccer in the USA' started by pc4th, Jul 2, 2005.

  1. pc4th

    pc4th New Member

    Jun 14, 2003
    North Poll
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think he will be successful. He's a businessman and he knows what he is doing. He is not risking $1.47 billion on something he didn't do a whole lot of research on.

    Anyway, we will find out a few years from now based on ManU Forbes value.
     
  2. pappa

    pappa New Member

    May 4, 2005
    i agree. i also think he will be a success. you just dont spend all of that money to throw it away.

    as the season starts i think a lot of the hype will fall away and those still disillusioned will just follow fc united instead
     
  3. MightyMouse

    MightyMouse BigSoccer Supporter

    Jun 19, 2003
    Island paradise east of the mainland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If they win he wins, if they lose he loses. I think Man U are too big to go down the pecking order. All they have to do is continue to buy the best players and the sky is the limit.
     
  4. JRstriker12

    JRstriker12 New Member

    Jan 27, 2002
    Falls Church, VA
    I saw the Sky sports report on Glazer and ManU. It looks like
    Glazer and his sons are smart enough to leave the important things alone and make sure that ManU succeeds on the field. Hi son gave an interview ansd said theydin't want to change things tht make ManU - ManU (no seeling the stadium, chnaginf the crest,and no cap on player purchases.

    It sounds like Glazer will give ManU the money and support they need to succeed and intern make lots of cash.

    I think at this point it's really up to Fegie and the tem to do it on the field. I don't think the Glazers will mess with a winning formula.

    Assuming the team does well on the field, Glazer will make the money.
     
  5. king_saladin

    king_saladin New Member

    Oct 5, 2004
    MI, USA
    I'm not so sure he understands European football as much as he should. Could be a mistake.
     
  6. (TxT)

    (TxT) Member+

    Jun 9, 2004
    Tampa, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    European football from a business point is incredibly easy to understand, more money = better players = more wins. He already has the money and shouldn't have any trouble in the marketing department since they are tops in the world in that category. It isn't that much different than baseball, the only differences other than they are two seperate games are pro/rel, luxuy tax, free transfers, and no playoffs. Someone like him, a super rich investor with experience in professional sports, shouldn't have any trouble handling ManU.

    Now I'd like to see some of these European guys try to tackle the NFL.
     
  7. Crapids fan

    Crapids fan New Member

    May 27, 2005
    Thornton CO
    Man U already turns a hefty profit. Which is now all Glaziers. By profit I mean the money left over after the transfer kitty as well (Glazier has already stated he will not lower this). If he puts all the profits toward the debt, rather than lining his pockets he should pay it down pretty quickly.
    Besides, whoever said that debt in business was necassarily a bad thing. Most Businesses operate with a system of debts and repayments.
    The first rule of business- Never spend your own money.

    Now, Glazier is a billionaire. You dont get that rich by being stupid, and you dont stay that rich by spending your money foolishly.
     
  8. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    if only it were that simple. Yes, in theory spending lots of money makes you a better team, but you have to buy the right players, and those players have to perform as a team. It's not as if Man Utd have been thrifty in their spending of late, and it's got them nowhere. Also, the profit margins are much narrower, so the consequences of getting it wrong when you do splash the cash are more severe (say a big hello to Leeds United). He also has to pay off the huge debt he lumbered the club with. Because of that debt he needs to raise (depending on differing sources) an extra £20 million - £40 million per year, just to keep the club ticking over. Where that extra money is going to come from, let alone the extra amount required to get the team competing with Chelsea (Roman Abramovich is pouring far more money into Chelsea than the Glazers can afford), isn't a question anyone appears able to answer.



    The NFL? It's got a salary cap which guarantees profits. You could stick a bucket of custard as chairman of an NFL team and it'd still make a profit.
     
  9. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Man Utd's profit, IIRC, was £25 million last year. Using that profit it'd take 20 years to pay off the debt.
     
  10. DAGSports

    DAGSports New Member

    Sep 19, 2003
    If so, that's not inconsistent with what American teams go through to pay off stadiums/arenas that they themselves finance, as well as actual purchases of teams.
     
  11. (TxT)

    (TxT) Member+

    Jun 9, 2004
    Tampa, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But it isn't Glazer responsibility to bring in the right players, that's the coaching staffs job. Yes there is the whole matter of debt and profit margins but every business has those issues so it shouldn't new to him. What your saying is correct but the point I was trying to make is that one doesn't have to have been immersed in the European soccer culture to be successful in it like the poster before me implied, and I compared Euro-soccer to baseball to prove it. I am speaking from a purely finanical point of view, as for the team being competitive that is another story.
     
  12. Fires Of Fulham

    Fires Of Fulham New Member

    Mar 30, 2005
    Chicago, USA
    He'll lose money but only because it's nearly impossible to make money on an EPL team. Almost every owner ended up either slightly in the black or in the red.
     
  13. JRstriker12

    JRstriker12 New Member

    Jan 27, 2002
    Falls Church, VA
    Really?

    I find that hard to belive. The owners are in it for the money.

    Besides, isn't ManU soccer's most pofitable club or second most next to Real???

    No way Glazer buys into ManU if he only had a small chance of breaking even.
     
  14. Fires Of Fulham

    Fires Of Fulham New Member

    Mar 30, 2005
    Chicago, USA
    I'm just going by what I keep hearing from every business commentator I've ever heard on the BBC (and right when Glazer took over there were quite a few as you imagine). Tons of owners have come in and lost their shirts. Trying to run a soccer club purely as a business rarely ever works. Most owners do it partially because they enjoy winning. Though, of course you're right that this is for normal clubs. Manchester United does tend to be a profit maker for its ownership.
     
  15. DutchFootballRulez

    Jul 15, 2003
    Baltimore, MD
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Unfortunately, the line between Pro sports and amateur sports than football clubs represent(ed) will be destroyed by Glazers/Abramovich. The prices will rise to meet demand. Man Utd will no longer have one of the cheapest tickets around. What the Glazers underestimated is that despite the small (by US standard) area that the UK encompasses, supporters are LOYAL in their love for their club and hatred of others.

    Increasing the stadium capacity, increasing TV revenue is one thing. But unless the UK has a large population and income surge. It won't make a lot of difference. The good thing is: the Glazers are in their 30s/40s. Old Trafford is in Manchester on Sir Matt Busby Way. How are the "glory hunters" in other countries going to attend matches? Will they continue to buy shirts/PPV/video games/scarves if Man Utd stops winning trophies?

    What'd help Man Utd is nonsensical sponsorship deals, Microsoft/Sony/Panasonic paying through the nose to be on the shirt, Nike/Adidas paying a giganormous amount of money to make those shirts. Selling young players for a large fee. The last one isn't the best, but that's probably the most desperate measure.
     
  16. king_saladin

    king_saladin New Member

    Oct 5, 2004
    MI, USA
    Ahh... like I said, European football is much different from something like the MLB. Owners rarely make much money. Money is almost always lost. In the MLB, you don't need to win the Series every other year to keep the same income flowing. You can't compare the two.
     
  17. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    That's just it, the owners aren't in it for the money here. They are in it because they want to own a club. Essentially it's a rich man's toy. There is no history of owners coming in to make some money and sell the club at a profit later on. Absolutely none. It's because the owners are more concerned with on-the-pitch success than off-the-pitch success that they chuck every spare penny into building the team, which tends to mean that anyone who tries to run a club in a more conservative fashion tends to get left with an underperforming club, as they are investing less in the team than their peers.

    The only owners who've made money out of football are the few shady individuals who've taken over struggling lower division clubs and sold their stadiums and kept the money themselves. That happened at Brighton, for example. It looks like it's going to happen a Wrexham, after the chairman there sold Wrexham's stadium to another of his companies for £1 and then had this other company serve notice that "tenants" at the ground would be evicted unless they paid £300,000 for a new lease.
    It nearly happened at Doncaster, and did at semi-pro Bridlington Town, who were owned by the same owner. He first madly moved Bridlington Town's games to Doncaster, with the sole intention of forcing the club to fold (not only were they now paying rent, but they lost about 80% of their support) whereupon he sold their ground and kept the money. He then did his utmost to try and make Doncaster fold so he could sell their ground too. He made the team utterly woeful so they'd bomb out of the league, which they did. He'd probably have succeeded but he got impatient and decided on a more radical appraoch - he and an accomplice turned up at the stadium in the middle of the night and proceeded to try and burn down the main stand to claim on the insurance. He was caught and sent to prison and the ground and club were taken out of his ownership. With him gone crowds flocked back to levels unseen since before The Beatles split. At the first game with the club freed from his control, the PA guy dedicated a song to "absent friends", Prodigy's Firestarter.

    Marler Estates, a property development consortium (property developers and football clubs go together as well as banana trifle and engine oil) once owned stakes in the clubs and/or grounds of QPR, Fulham and Chelsea (all three are within about a mile of each other). the objective were very transparent - they wanted to build on the land, especially at Fulham, being right next to the Thames. It was only some fantastic, if expensive, legal war of attrition with Chelsea's old chairman Ken Bates that saw Marler Estates fold before they could carry out their plan.

    In 1983, Robert Maxwell, owner of Oxford, announced he was going to buy Reading FC and merge the two clubs and have the "Thames Valley Royals" play in Didcot, halfway between the two towns. Apart from the obvious stupidity of the idea - the clubs were rivals and Didcot has poor road links to both towns as well as only having a tiny population - the fact was that Robert Maxwell was a crook and it was 99.9% certain than rather than a merger, he'd just sell Reading's ground and invariably keep the money himself. His death, from falling off a his yacht into the Med, announced just a few hours before a Reading home match, was greeted with the reverence it deserved. It also caused the most rapid change in editorial policy in Fleet Street history. His newspaper, the Daily Mirror, was filled with gushing tributes the following day. But when it was found that he'd stolen all the staff's pension fund money, rather diffent anecdotes appeared in the next day's edition.

    So although the Glazers are unlikely to be from the same mould, when owners here try to make money out of a club it is invariably a bad thing, which is why they face such hostility. Coming from a world where it is normal for owners to be in it to make money, it's just one cultural difference that they've failed to appreciate. It could well be the number of other things that they didn't quite appreciate, and the impact of them, that determines if they'll succeed or fail.
     
  18. Prenn

    Prenn Member

    Apr 14, 2000
    Ireland
    Club:
    Bolton Wanderers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    It'll fail spectacuarly becuase they, like a lot of the Americans in this thread, don't understand the economics behind owning a football club.

    How can you take over a club, spend less than the previous owners and expect it to be a success. Especially when 200 miles away you've got a multibillionaire Russian spending his cash like it's going out of fashion.

    If they're lucky they'll keep the club in the same situation that it is now but I doubt it.
     
  19. DonCorleone

    DonCorleone New Member

    Jun 21, 2005
    NY state.
    he did not do a whole lot of research on ? how do you know ? a businessman always do the research before laying the ground work.
     
  20. Rowdiesfan

    Rowdiesfan New Member

    Feb 10, 2001
    Orlando, FL
    I don't think Glazer bought Manure (Sorry, had to say it-after all, I'm an Arsenal fan :cool: ) to make a profit...I think he bought it for prestige. IMO, he might have bought the Yankees if Steinbrenner was willing to sell.

    Speaking of Steinbrenner...
    I think the Glazer family wants to be like him; emulate him, only on a higher level. They couldn't do that in the NFL (even though the NFL is more popular than baseball) because of the salary cap.
     

Share This Page