Manchester United most valuable sports organization in the world

[dave32]

Most people here know more about soccer (football) than I.

 

But found this a good read.

 

Link

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<snipped from the article>:

 

On Saturday, May 14, as the final whistle ended a 1-1 draw in the English Premier League between Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United, a man looking perhaps a shade younger than his 69 years began dancing around and hugging everyone in sight. If Sir Alex Ferguson, United's manager, looked like a bit of a dork — as he usually does when celebrating — nobody cared. United had just won its 19th English League title, beating the record of its archrival Liverpool, the team that Ferguson had long ago promised to "knock off their perch." Of those 19 championships, 12, together with five FA Cup victories, have been won since Ferguson arrived in 1986. On May 28 he will go for another title, when United meets Barcelona in the final of the European Champions League in London. If his team wins, Ferguson will have his third European championship and United its fourth. Only Real Madrid, AC Milan and Liverpool have won more.

 

But the bare bones of United's record — and Ferguson's — tell barely half the story. Analyses of sports clubs' commercial operations vary, depending on who's doing them, but in 2010, Forbes magazine ranked United the most valuable franchise in world sports, with an estimated worth of $1.8 billion — more than that of the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys — and that was before it signed a record $130 million shirt-sponsorship deal with insurance company Aon. United's international fan base, measured in the tens of millions (with much of it in Asia), is greater than that of any other team in any other sport. Sponsors include Nike, a Turkish airline, a Thai beer, the capital of South Korea, a Chilean winemaker and a bevy of telecommunications companies spanning the globe. But the global reach of the brand has not come at the expense of local loyalty. United's stadium at Old Trafford averages attendance of some 75,000 a game, in a season 10 months long.

 

It's an astonishing record, but it's also a bit of a mystery. Manchester is an O.K. sort of a place, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, with a famous club scene and a concert hall uniquely named after an economic theory, but it's not a capital city or a megalopolis. So how did this town in the northwest of England manage to produce one of the age's true global brands? And — even more mysterious — how has a single man, over 24 years, been able to sustain such excellence in his teams at a time when the social, economic, technological and competitive environment of his sport has been transformed, turning it into perhaps the only spectacle that the world truly holds in common?

 

The story starts with a tragedy.

[Mekong]

Not a bad article considering it was written by a Scouser, an honest insight into the global appeal of the Club for those who don't know the history.

 

Coming from Manchester myself and having followed them for over 40 years I am fully aware of the history, to me United are more football club they are my religion. I am so obsessed that I will only date women who like football and support United, fortunatly due to United's global appeal they are not that difficult to find.

 

The article mentons the chant about the Korean midfielder Ji-Sung Park but does not mention the words which are

 

Park Park Wherever You May Be

You Eat Dog In Your Country

It Could Worse

You Could Be Scouse

Eating Rat in a Council House