Yesterday we covered the revenues of the top 20 soccer teams in the world in terms of revenue and how that Real Madrid Still Richest Soccer Club in the World . But how do Real Madrid and Manchester United stock up with the largest US sports franchises like the New York Yankees and Washington Redskins in terms of revenue?
Lets first look at the annual revenues of the teams in America’s largest leagues. According to Forbes magazine the top 5 baseball teams in terms of revenue are:
- New York Yankees $277 million
- Boston Red Sox $206 million
- New York Mets $195 million
- Los Angeles Dodgers $189 million
- Chicago Cubs $179 million
The top 5 basketball teams in terms of revenue according to Forbes are:
- New York Knicks $196 million
- Los Angeles Lakers $170 million
- Chicago Bulls $161 million
- Detroit Pistons $154 million
- Cleveland Cavaliers $152 million
The top 5 NFL teams in terms of revenue according to Forbes are:
- Washington Redskins $312 million
- New England Patriots $255 million
- Dallas Cowboys $242 million
- Houston Texans $225 million
- Philadelphia Eagles $224 million
Now Forbes has different revenue numbers for soccer teams than Deloitte had. The Forbes numbers are substantially lower than Deloitte’s, but lets use Forbes numbers so that we can compare all the sports teams with one common set of numbers, from one source. Forbes ranks the top 5 soccer teams in terms of revenue as:
- Real Madrid Spain $374 million
- Barcelona $331 million
- Juventus $321 million
- Manchester United $310 million
- AC Milan $305 million
So the only US sports franchise that can compete with soccer is the Washington Redskins. And even then, the Redskins are only the 4th largest sports team in the world in terms of revenue. The Top five richest sports teams are:
- Real Madrid Spain $374 million
- Barcelona $331 million
- Juventus $321 million
- Washington Redskins $312 million
- Manchester United $310 million
Is it any wonder that American sports owners are buying European soccer teams, especially those in the English Premier League? With English teams selling for just over 1x annual revenue, they are much cheaper (and profitable) than US sports franchises.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d be interested to see a summary of annual revenues by sport by country.
So for instance, how much money does gridiron football make (all teams) in the US, versus association football (all teams) in Spain?
The statistic is kinda of bias. European fans only have 1 major sport to deal with, the next competitive sport is cricket or hockey (what a joke). While America fans have at least 3 major sports (American Football, Baseball and Basketball) to compete against, and I’m not even including hockey and soccer. Know lets say if we only have one major sport, European football wouldn’t even have a chance.
Totally disagree. US Sports have a much bigger market in terms of TV money, revenue options and size of market. How much bigger is the U.S. market compared to the U.K. or Spain?
Using your 3 major sports, that totals less than 100 teams. That is equal to the number of teams in the top divisions in England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. That is only a fraction of the top teams competing in Europe.