Why United's commercial operation is important

Manchester United have a particularly successful and sophisticated commercial operation.   In the recent fans' forum, Joel Glazer explained that without a successful commercial operation, you cannot have a successful football club but admitted these interests may have come to the fore too much. 

He felt that when his family took over, the commercial area was one he felt his family could help and claimed many positives had come from this: United had among the highest net transfer spend and wages in world football and they haven’t raised ticket prices in 10 years (though they had shot up in the five years prior, when his father Malcolm was making decisions).

With United leading the way on issues like ticket prices, he said, other clubs were pressured to do the same. This segment of the meeting was later included in United’s press release quoting Glazer as saying: “We want this club to always be successful and win trophies. To compete for trophies requires significant investment. The commercial growth at the club has helped deliver the revenue which ultimately underpins that investment in a sustainable manner."

“That approach has allowed us to have among the highest net transfer spend in world football over the last five years and have one of the highest wage bills. Also, as a direct result of our commercial business, we have kept ticket prices affordable for all fans and not raised season ticket prices in over 10 years. This is an area that we as a club are very proud of.”

Asked why the Glazers took annual dividends, he said the amounts were “modest” “and less than three per cent of our revenue” and that the dividends had never stood in the way of transfers. He added that: “We may have walked away from a transfer because the other side wanted outlandish numbers.”