Man U crazy

Believe the hype

659M: Manchester United "followers" worldwide, according to the club

If the Dallas Cowboys are America's Team, then Manchester United is the World's Club -- the dominant brand in the most popular sport on the planet. Of course, it can't command a big market share without astute marketing. Take those 659 million "followers," a number culled from an Internet survey of only 53,287 folks; it counted anyone who followed the team, for good or ill. United has quietly admitted that only 277 million of those followers call the team their favorite. But with 27 million Facebook likes and an annual TV audience of 4 billion, it's clear that more people in more places pay attention to Manchester United than any other team in the world. Love, loathe … what's the difference?

Winning isn't everything, but it sure helps

19: Record number of league titles won by Manchester United

How did a plucky squad from a midsize industrial city become sports' biggest brand? By being wicked good. The traditional Big Four -- Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool -- long dominated English football, and the Red Devils dominate the Big Four. Since the English Premier League began in 1992, United has won 12 crowns. Throw in the 11 FA Cups, three European Cups and a FIFA Club World Cup, and it's no wonder the club is so damn popular. Then there are the stars -- from current leaders Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney to David Beckham, a marketing machine that the club cleverly set free on the world market in the mid-'90s. Sure, winning helps, but looking good doing it helps even more.

Top of the table

1: Rank in the world's most valuable franchises, as estimated by Forbes

Manchester United's owners took away a bracing $43.8 million in profits in 2011, a detail we know because the Glazers, the Palm Beach, Fla.–based family that bought the club in 2005, boldly listed the team on the New York Stock Exchange with an Aug. 10 IPO. Opening your books to the public, as required when you sell shares on the NYSE, is something today's privacy- obsessed American sports owners don't do. But the thick-skinned Glazers long ago stopped being coy about their ownership of United. We now know that the team had $520 million in revenue in the 2010-11 season; that more than a third of that came from its share of the EPL's international TV contract; and that simply swapping uniform sponsors from UK-based AON to Chevrolet will add $53.4 million a year to the coffers. We also know how much of the team's revenue can't be invested in players because of the money the Glazers owe to banks.

In the red, devils

$631M: Interest and fees paid by Manchester United since the Glazers borrowed $965 million to buy the team in 2005

Borrowing against your assets is common in business. But regular businesses don't have insane fans who burn execs in effigy because the team spent $67.1 million last year on debt payments. That's money that could be spent on players. In the 2010-11 season, Manchester United spent about $138 million on its first-team roster, meaning the club barely outspent Arsenal ($132 million) and Liverpool ($130.8 million), despite making far more money. But what really irks fans is the perception that the Glazers -- father Malcolm, principal owner of the Tampa Bay Bucs, and sons Joel and Avram, who run Manchester United -- seem to care only about lining their pockets. A team with no debt before the takeover is now one of the most leveraged franchises in the world, a situation the Glazers are in no hurry to rectify. So far, there's been no discernible impact on the field; the Red Devils have won four EPL titles with the Yanks at the helm.

Clean sheet

$116M: Estimated amount the Glazers earned on the Aug. 10 IPO

The Glazers bought Manchester United for the equivalent of a cool $1.47 billion. Because they borrowed most of that, they need a way to pay it back; selling shares to American investors on the New York Stock Exchange was part of their answer. But not, of course, without keeping much of the cash for themselves. The IPO raised $232.4 million, which the team initially said would be used to pay down some of the $665 million in remaining debt. The owners kept half of the proceeds. Meanwhile, the 16.7 million shares sold to the public have one-tenth the voting power of the shares owned by the family. So United's shareholders won't have a say in the club's business affairs. They won't receive dividend checks either, because the club isn't paying any.

Money walks

26: Minutes it took for investors to tell the Glazers that they thought the deal for Robin van Persie sucked

Just because shareholders have no say in how the Glazers run the team doesn't mean they'll be silent. Five days after the IPO, Manchester United paid about $35.3 million to Arsenal for the contract of striker Robin van Persie. Many considered him too costly, and the stock price plummeted. In only 26 minutes on Aug. 16, shares lost 4.5 percent of value, sucking about $112 million from the club's market value. The lesson is that the popularity of every transaction now can be measured in real time and money. Imagine this in an NFL in which investors had both access to a team's books and a say: The Colts lose millions in value for releasing Peyton Manning, then get a bump after drafting Andrew Luck. How's that for a fantasy league?

"We'll never wear our famous red 'til Glazer's gone or even dead."

183K: Fans who have joined manchester united supporters trust to declare "love united, hate glazer"

Thousands of Manchester United's most ardent supporters believe the Glazers are the worst thing ever to happen to English football. Their group, called MUST, advocates boycotting United's dozens of corporate sponsors while calling for the sale of the team. Their website depicts one of the Glazers in a diaper and condemns the IPO as shameless profiteering. Although many hate the foreign owners for not knowing football, the main complaint is that all the debt keeps the club from dominating as completely as it should. Of course, the griping likely won't change much. The Glazers' perfectly legal, highly profitable ownership strategy leaves them on top of the sports heap.

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