Real Madrid & FC Barcelona Land 1st & 2nd Ranks in World's Most Valuable Soccer Teams
Real Madrid C.F. will slug it out against Italian club Juventus this coming week as the two teams hope to make their UEFA Champions League finals dream a reality. But, the Spanish capital-based booters were already handicapped with their first leg "away" loss (2-1); and history is against their side as they have failed to win a single semi-final match in seven tries when losing the first leg.
Regardless of the result, though, the team has been already lording it over everyone else as they grab this year's top spot in Forbe's ranking of the world's most valuable soccer teams.
Real Madrid, worth $3.26 billion, is the no. 1 most valuable team in the sport with a revenue of $746 million. The Cristiano Ronaldo-led team earned a league-high $154 million in three years from Champions league, Forbes also notes.
Barcelona came in at a close second with a value of $3.16 billion, and holding the same spot for two consecutive years. Soccer superstars Lionel Messi and Neymar are the two top attraction of the team. They have multi-million deals with Qatar Airways and Nike, apart from the record-high league TV distribution revenue amounting to $190 million.
Manchester United trails the top two teams with a value of $3.1 billion. The team has been enjoying financial success recently with deals scored from Adidas last year, amounting to more than $110 million per annum, and another $75 million a year from Chevrolet in a uniform deal.
Bayern Munich of the German league Bundesliga ($2.35 billion), and Manchester City of the English Premier League ($1.38 billion) round up the top five of the list.
Overall, the top 20 most valuable soccer teams are estimated to have a value of $1.16 billion on the average. Forbes cited the fact that these soccer teams have fared pretty well, lately, in terms of television deals and revenues from sponsorships, resulting in the improved values as compared to the past years.
The average value of the top 20 teams this year was better by 11% than last year, and an 84% increase in value as compared to five years ago. These values are even more impressive in terms of the euro (and not in dollars), Forbes' notes.
Real Madrid C.F. may have clinched the top spot of the Forbes' list for the past three editions, but the second-ranked FC Barcelona is inching closely behind.
The gap has narrowed between the top two teams, with Barcelona likely to take over the top spot in the years to come. The team rose from the fifth spot to its current position, and is already increasing its value by three times, according to CNN.
Javier Faus, vice-president and finance department head of FC Barcelona, released a statement saying that "FC Barcelona's staggering economic development is patently clear. With the club now valued just $100 million short of Real Madrid, it's the smallest gap for the last five years."