Glazers to consider selling Manchester United? Official: Ratcliffe Acquires 25% of United shares

Don't see Amazon or Facebook getting into sports to be honest. I think the randomness of sport would blow the minds of Bezos and Zuckerberg they don't strike me as sports guys. Same reason I don't ever see Elon Musk going into sports. They're control freaks I just don't see them getting on in the sports world where you aren't allowed to do whatever you want.

In terms of where the billionaires are, not sure I see money coming from China anymore they've stopped these sort of investments, Russia obviously off the table due to current war in Ukraine and apart from Bahrain the middle eastern states are already in the game. That leaves American and maybe India.

If one of these IPL owners has the money to go for it they might think that they can really launch football in India and expand it alongside the IPL which only runs for a few months a year. From American you're looking at a figurehead with the backing of a private equity firm and likely someone who already owns a sports team in the states.

Apparently there were 20 different interested parties for Chelsea when Raine was managing that sale, Jim Ratcliffe was the 21st when he made a late approach.

I think the key thing is this gets sorted before the end of the season the reason being if it isn't then the transfer budget for this summer will be slashed as the Glazers will not want another penny going on the debt while they're negotiating a sale. Now we're for sale everything will kind of go into safe mode to make the club look as healthy as possible to an investor basically what happened at Newcastle when Ashley wanted rid of it.

6 months is an ambitious time frame but if they're keen to get out quick it could be done.
 
Apple Source goes lovely with Pork and I think someone is telling Porkies.
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Didn't someone on here say Google were interested in naming OT a while ago?
Maybe they'll be up for it.
Good marketing for their phones which I am noticing more and more on TV
 
Didn't someone on here say Google were interested in naming OT a while ago?
Maybe they'll be up for it.
Good marketing for their phones which I am noticing more and more on TV

Think that was the Tottenham stadium
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
I'd be more surprised if one of the tech giants wasn't interested in buying United. Most of them have had an interest in getting into the sport broadcasting game, with Amazon getting involved in Thursday night NFL matches and Apple doing MLB games. If any of the major streaming services could get their hands on exclusive content with a world wide reach, they would be more than willing to pay 5bn one time vs bidding billions for a rights package for x amount of years. Theoretically, they'd have a vested interest in maintaining a high quality product that will attract subscribers, which bodes well for squad investment.
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
I'd be more surprised if one of the tech giants wasn't interested in buying United. Most of them have had an interest in getting into the sport broadcasting game, with Amazon getting involved in Thursday night NFL matches and Apple doing MLB games. If any of the major streaming services could get their hands on exclusive content with a world wide reach, they would be more than willing to pay 5bn one time vs bidding billions for a rights package for x amount of years. Theoretically, they'd have a vested interest in maintaining a high quality product that will attract subscribers, which bodes well for squad investment.

Owning Utd would potentially compromise their ability to bid for TV rights as the other 19 teams wouldn't want the owners of a club also being in control of the TV especially as TV controls kick off times.

As long as there's a collective agreement in place for all 20 teams to sell together it just wouldn't work for them. If they could get Utd out of that deal and put them on their platform exclusively then that's a different story but the other clubs will never allow that to happen.

I think the interest from them is in the broadcasting rights longer term and who will eventually own them or will the premier league look to take it all in house and own it under some sort of PremFlix network that everyone worldwide can access and pay a subscription to.

My guess with the tech companies is they're more likely to stick their name on a club through stadium or shirt sponsorship that to actually buy one.
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


Of course he is the greedy little twerp wants a fee.

The only advice he should be giving is whatever you do don't put me in charge of running it.
 
I could definitely see a company like Apple/Google/Amazon buying united. And I would prefer this to many other options.
 
To put it into a bit of perspective Apple revenue per year is approx 600 times the revenue of Man Utd $365bn they turned over last year we do something in the region of $600m.

Honestly lads a football club to these tech firms is chump change.

If Old Trafford gets rebuilt I can see one of these companies slapping their name on the stadium like Spotify have done at the Nou Camp but I can't see them getting involved in owning a sports team.

1) they lose money
2) it will risk alienating customers from rival teams. 1bn people might be Utd fans in the world but 7bn are not.
3) Sport is riddled with corruption
4) you have to work with other clubs silicon valley firms don't tend to play nice with each other. They tend to focus on putting the competition out of business.

The attraction of a football club will be to private equity firms who may still predict growth in the sports market over the next 20 years and have the resources to make that bet over the longer term.

The other attraction is the more sinister side the sports washing side there's already lots of talk that Saudi Arabia might be interested would that mean someone like Aramco look to buy Utd? Or has the backlash against Qatar 2022 and the Newcastle takeover putting them off that idea as it doesn't really work anymore in the west.
 
it will risk alienating customers from rival teams. 1bn people might be Utd fans in the world but 7bn are not
I thought about this, then I thought nah that thats rubbish. Otherwise nobody would sponsor any teams.

Nobody's not going to buy an Iphone just because Apple own Man Utd for example, or not fly Etihad

I agree there is a slim chance, but I wouldn't rule it out. I can see a benefit, especially the companies with TV stations.
 
I thought about this, then I thought nah that thats rubbish. Otherwise nobody would sponsor any teams.

Nobody's not going to buy an Iphone just because Apple own Man Utd for example, or not fly Etihad

I agree there is a slim chance, but I wouldn't rule it out. I can see a benefit, especially the companies with TV stations.

It is a small factor but not a huge one when making that sort of decision the other reasons are far more likely to keep them away from sports when it comes to ownership.

I don't get your point about TV companies if we use amazon as an example. If Amazon buy Man Utd then try to bid for the collective TV rights for premier league football on Prime. Do you think the other 19 teams are going to allow Amazon and therefore Man Utd to own the TV rights to the whole league? It would be like giving MUTV the rights to the premier league, it simply wouldn't be allowed to happen.

There would be questions raised about bias in the broadcasting as Amazon would likely over promote Utd and if they had domestic rights they could dictate our kick off times and more importantly our rivals kick off times. Owning Utd would put them at a disadvantage not an advantage in those negotiations as you'd start out with 19 clubs against you.

I just don't see where the win is for them the financial reward is long term over 20 years you might double the price of the business which is an increase of 5bn these guys make that sort of money every month. The numbers might seem big to us but to these sort of companies it's change down the back of the sofa stuff.

The only way they'd go for it was if they could separate Utd from the rest of the premier league and even UEFA and totally control Utd's TV rights. Then you're talking a different game but that won't happen and it's the reason why FSG and Glazers have chucked in the towel in my opinion.
 
I hope TV rights for football eventually get done club by club. I imagine united would earn much more by hosting their games on MUTV for example.
Currently I don't get to watch them, they ask for 6 quid a game on MUTV then I'm up for it. 30-40 quid a month for Canal + you can do one. I don't want all that other rubbish.

Companies like Apple dont get that big by turning down 5bn over 10 years, 5 billion is 5 billion. I don't think you are giving united enough credit in how big they are in world sport, imagine United with an Apple logo on their shirt.

By the way, I don't think they will buy united, but I don't think its that outlandish to think they could
 
Apple and Tech firms are not about taking a piece of the pie they're about taking the whole pie. Yeah you could turn 5bn into 10bn over a decade but it would take a lot of work, a lot of capital investment and need some big decisions with outside forces to go your way. When you eventually cash out you might be banking 2bn of actual profit.

Tech firms tend to want to destroy the competition and take everything for themselves and more importantly innovate in areas where regulation doesn't exist yet. Football ownership is the last place they're going to put their money.

The other clubs are never going to allow Utd to own it's own TV rights and play in their competition. If anything football is going the other way with La Liga pulling in the power of the big boys in Spain to make a more even spread of the money through the league as they realise having 2 super power clubs isn't good for them.

You don't need to spend £5bn to get an Apple logo on a Utd shirt the going rate is about £50m a year which is what teamviewer pay. I suspect if they wanted to get involved in sport by now they'd have sponsored a team where a business like Apple thinks is why don't we pay more and see if we can make it the Apple Premier League.

A football club may seem like a massive business to us but in the world where these boys exist it's tiny.
 
I don't think United is ever going to be able to sell their own TV rights, which is probably for the betterment of the league as a whole. However, I think the ability to have exclusive rights to MUTV and club related content on your streaming platform would play in places like India, Africa etc., where United is huge, and could be monetized. As well, each club earns 1.5bn/season in TV revenue, which goes a long way to offset the cost of any package Amazon/Apple could purchase. There is also the idea that individual clubs could sell their own TV rights, with the money being pooled and split among the 20 PL clubs. Theoretically that could yield more for each club than the current collective rights deals.

I don't think a company like Apple buying United and putting their logo on the shirt/OT/renaming Carrington etc., would mean that Liverpool supporters would suddenly bin their iPhones and nick themselves an android phone.
 
It’s almost like these ex players are trying to stay relevant by attaching themselves to everything United. More Rio than Becks.
 
A lot of players are harming their legacy as far as I'm concerned. Not many I like post playing career.
Beckham at United, I'd rather the Glazers ffs
 
Rio has a podcast/youtube channel that he needs to draw attention to so take everything he says with a pinch of salt. He's not afraid to stick a big opinion out there and it often comes back to bite him.

Of course Becks name will get linked to the club and those looking to build a consortium and make a bid would love to have him on board. Becks will stick his name on anything for a price.

The best way to shut these lads up is on the pitch don't give them anything to moan about.
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
No owner is going to guarantee that and it won’t be a condition from the Glazers it’ll be sold to whoever puts the most money on the table.

Hopefully the sale will be done before the summer
 

Login or Register

Forgot your password?
or Log in using
Don't have an account? Register now
Back
Top