The first thing about these lists, of course, is the need for a lot of caveats. These “most valuable clubs” exercises are mostly...well, they’re not guesswork, because a lot of the numbers they use to comprise this list are publicly available, but what gets done with those numbers by Forbes and the other groups doing these valuations is kind of a series of SWAG’s. A lot of the Forbes list of the most valuable clubs is based on things like TV deals and match day income, which is going to skew very heavily towards English clubs, which is why you see West Ham and Leicester in the top 20. But do you really believe that West Ham is a more financially valuable property than
And that “match day income” category - how is it calculated? No idea! It’s just a big ol’ bucket of whatever Forbes deems it to be, which...sure. It also is very problematic that Forbes doesn’t actually talk, even in high level detail, about their methodology. What do they deem important and what less so? We have no way of knowing, except a couple paragraph blurb that generates more questions than it answers and a few footnotes at the bottom of each team’s individual breakdown.
So, all that aside, Arsenal rank sixth, which...huzzah. All this means is that people will seize on the £1.5B overall valuation they see and probably use that as fuel for SPEND SOME MONEY ARSENE, so it’s basically a case of as you were, but I guess lists like this are a fun thing to talk about. I’ll just leave you with this:
Annual reminder that Forbes has no clue how to value football clubs and their valuations are completely worthless.
— Jake Cohen (@JakeFCohen) June 6, 2017