Manchester United plc (NYSE: MANU), the only sports team that is publicly traded, today announced their fourth quarter and fiscal 2014 results. Three big takeaways:
1.) the financial impact of sacking David Moyes (having to buy out his contract early)
2.) the record profits and revenue for the year
3.) the expected financial hit taken by missing out on Champions League
Click on any of the three items listed above for more detail on each fiscal item. For now we’ll focus on Moyes, Wall Street anticipated the club will announcing annual revenue of between £420-£430 million. The final report was a record 433 million; a new record! Profits were 23.8 million.
Ticket sales have been as strong as ever, merchandise sales are soaring and the franchise just signed a lucrative new kit deals with Chevrolet and Adidas. The new shirt deals should compensate for the money lost out on finishing seventh under David Moyes last year and missing out on UEFA Champions League.
So yeah about that David Moyes guy…
..it cost the club £5.2m to dismiss him and his coaching staff. Also, the club’s projections show that revenue is expected to fall by 10 per cent to between £385 million to £395 million in the current fiscal year because of their failure to qualify for the Champions League.
Match-day revenue declined 12.6 percent to 18 million pounds from last year, due primarily to playing one fewer home Premier League game and away domestic cup game as well as reduced match-day hospitality industry revenues.
But on the plus side, Broadcasting revenues surged 27.8% to 34 million pounds from the prior year, primarily due to increased revenue from the Premier League domestic and international rights agreements and increased UEFA Champions League revenue. So it looks like the new broadcasting deals in America with NBC Sports Group (Premier League contests) and Fox Sports (Champions League, Domestic Cups) has really paid off.
Shares of Man United were trading down 2.51% on this news. MANU opened at $15.56 today but dipped substantially. The last quote was $15.09′ despite the fact that the company reported earnings that were better than expected. They “beat the street” so to say.
Paul M. Banks owns and manages The Sports Bank.net, in partnership with Fox Sports and Yahoo. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)