The Top 20 Wealthiest Soccer Teams in 2014

If you are a soccer fan, then this list of the top wealthiest soccer teams in 2014 is for you. But even if you are more keen on other sports, you fill find the countdown very interesting. Without a doubt, soccer is a very profitable business, but one which is relatively undiscovered in the U.S.

As a matter of fact, the most profitable sport teams in the country are baseball’s New York Yankees ($2.5 billion) and American football’s Dallas Cowboys ($2.3 billion). However, when it comes to soccer, a minor yet growing sport in America, Europe rules, without a doubt. So much so, that in this year’s list of the top wealthiest soccer teams in 2014, we can only find European clubs; at least in the 2013 ranking The Americas were represented by Corinthians, a Brazilian team.

Naturally, the sports industry as a whole is very profitable: basketball, football, baseball and soccer being the top team sports. On the other hand, tennis is the solo (or doubles) sport that brings in the big bucks for its players. If you want to know more about the tennis business just check out our list of the Top 10 Best Paid Tennis Stars in the World and see for yourself just how much money is involved in this sport.

Now, coming back to our present countdown, you should know that it is based on the data published by Forbes magazine last July. But some time after that article was published, Wall Street revealed, and Forbes later agreed, that the shares of Manchester United surged almost 5% after the team announced its kit deal with Adidas, worth $130 million a year. Naturally, this altered the list significantly, as you will later see. On the other hand, there are some new surprises in the 2014 countdown of the 20 richest soccer teams worldwide: a Turkish club made the cut for the first time in history, and there’s a new French team on the list as well (spoiler alert: the French teams that were on last year’s list didn’t make it to the top 20 this year.)

Before going into the list, you should know that the team values taken into account are enterprise values based on the current stadium deals. So, eager to get to know which are the top wealthiest soccer teams in 2014? Well, here’s the opulent countdown!