Bucs' Blackout Fallout

An exciting Bucs opener came and went without most football fans in Tampa Bay realizing what happened. The game was blacked out, even though some insiders speculated the team needed to sell just a few thousand more seats to reach the new 85% threshhold necessary to televise home games.

As I've written before, the NFL's "concessions" to fans were no real concessions at all. And on Saturday, Tampa Tribune columnist Joe Henderson echoed the sentiments, writing "If I were (the Bucs), I would have done whatever was necessary to put this game on local TV....The Bucs continue to grope in the dark, and it's tough to care about something you can't see."

Many fans apparently felt the same way, writing numerous letters to the editor criticizing the league and the team.

One fan claimed "to me, the Bucs don't exist" while another wrote "(i)f the Glazers wish to forgo the exposure of televised games by not buying the difference between 71 percent and 85 percent of the sale of non-premium seats, then they may have to deal with a shrinking fan base."

The next two weeks, fans can watch the Bucs play on the road, but unless Tampa Bay reels off consecutive wins against the Giants and the Cowboys, they're going to have an awful tough time selling Week 4 at home against the Redskins.

Odds & Ends: Bucs Blackouts, Franchise Values, and Manu Stock

Tampa Bay is getting used to it by now, but the NFL will black out another Bucs season-opener this weekend. Even with the reduced 85% capacity threshhold, the team didn't appear to come close to selling enough tickets.

It's more evidence that the NFL's off-season "concessions" weren't a concession to fans at all. After all, it's not like the NFL was really all that desperate to sell a few thousand more tickets with $9 billion in annual revenue...

It should also come as no surprise that, according to Forbes, every single NFL teams' franchise values held steady or jumped again this year. The top-ranked Cowboys are up to $2.1 billion; the Buccaneers are up a bit to $1.03 billion; and the Vikings, on the heels of a billion-dollar new stadium subsidy, jumped a league-high 22 percent to $975 million.

The Bucs' boost in value, however, won't do much to console fans of the Glazer's other team, Manchester United. Many scooped up the team's stock on the NYSE in July at $14/share, but it has since slipped to around $12.7/share and as the "Sports & Monsters" blog points out, all fans were really buying was worthless souvenirs to hang on their walls.

Odds & Ends: Bucs Blackouts & Glazers' Bucks

On Tuesday, the Tampa Sports Authority unanimously rejected the Bucs' bid to keep $12 million in unused tax funds from going back to local governments. The board ruled the team, which was promised the money for a practice complex back in 1996, lost its right to the funds by not claiming it for 16 years. The Bucs didn't like the decision, but it's a small - and rare - victory for taxpayers over a sports team.

Meanwhile, the Glazers aren't exactly hurting for money after their Manchester United IPO raised something like $200 million without giving up any real voting stake in the club. In fact, they may not mind having billionare George Soros buy up a huge chunk of the stock - with his other Tampa connections, they'll have no trouble talking business at the next Harbour Island barbeque.

Finally, all of the Bucs' preseason blackouts reinforce the point that the league's new 85% blackout threshold was no concession at all. The NFL still sends the message that it would rather make fans buy tickets to see their favorite teams than allow them to watch on TV for free. All the 85% rule does is acknowledge there isn't quite the demand for tickets there used to be.

And team owners, who could always lower the price of tickets, are sending a similar message that they'd rather sell 40,000 tickets at $40/each than 60,000 tickets at $20/each. No concession at all.

Glazers' IPO Flat but Family Still Richer

The Wall St. Journal called it"the equivalent of the game that ends in a goal-less draw."

Manchester United's IPO on the NYSE failed to excite...but it also failed to fail...which is a good thing if your last name is Glazer.

The shares of ManU, which came with virtually no voting power or expected short-term dividends, sold for $14 each. That valued the club, according to the AP, at $2.3 billion, "slightly higher than the record $2 billion paid for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team earlier this year."

It also meant the Glazers made about $110 million on the sale.

All-in-all, it has to be considered a successful day given how much power the family retained over the team and given the initial concerns about the IPO. And if any of the stockholders are unhappy, there's still the prospect of selling a whole bunch of new jerseys in Jamaica.

Forbes: Glazers Get Richer off Updated ManU IPO

Just posted from Forbes:

The amended filing for Manchester United’s public offering is going to give more of the IPO’s proceeds to the Glazer Family and less to the English soccer club than the original offering.

This change has infuriated MUST (Manchester United Supporters Trust), a large group of the club’s supporters who have been critical of the way Malcolm Glazer has run the Red Devils since gaining control in 2005 for $1.47 billion.

In an email to Forbes, Duncan Drasdo, the chief executive of Manchester United Supporters Trust wrote: “In the original filing it was made absolutely clear that ALL of the proceeds of the IPO would go to paying down debt the Glazers have loaded onto Manchester United. The revised filing reveals they now plan to take HALF OF THE IPO PROCEEDS FOR THEMSELVES. Furthermore the amount raised to pay down debt will be relatively insignificant (£75m) leaving £350m of their debt still on our club. There is now no doubt that this IPO is bad for Manchester United supporters, Manchester United Football Club and any investors gullible enough to pay the inflated price they’ve attached to inferior shares which have just 1/10 of the voting rights of the Glazers shares and no dividends. Their bare faced cheek is almost unbelievable.”

Manchester United commenced its IPO yesterday, offering of 16,666,667 Class A Ordinary Shares. Those shares consist of the club offering 8,333,334 Class A Ordinary Shares and the Glazer family offering 8,333,333 Class A Ordinary Shares. The underwriters (Jeffries Co., Credit Suisse Securities, J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank Securities) have an option to purchase up to an additional 2,500,000 Class A Ordinary Shares from the selling shareholder. The Class A Ordinary Shares will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and will trade under the symbol “MANU.”

You can read the amended filing at the bottom of the page here.

Odds & Ends: Dollars & Cents

It's belated, but a tip of the hat to the Glazer family for embracing the NFL's new 85% blackout threshhold. As I wrote before, it was hardly a concession to the fans from the league, but the Glazers made the right choice in making it as easy as possible for their games to be televised, instead of opting for a higher threshhold that might have encouraged a few more fans to buy tickets.

Meanwhile, the family's other team, Manchester United, remains the world's most valuable franchise at $2.23 billion, according to Forbes. Ho-hum. It makes the Bucs' sinking value (now $981 million) an easy pill to swallow.

As for the $12 million Hillsborough County wants back from the Bucs, you won't find any Glazer sympathizers in Daniel Ruth's family.

In baseball-land, the Yankees are the sport's most valuable team ($1.85 billion) and Derek Jeter is one of its richest stars. Which produces little surprise when his new Tampa home is valued at $12.3 million, nearly twice as much as any other home in the city.

Finally, one addition to the Stadium Subsidy post from Tuesday: the Cubbies are getting closer and closer to a little action too. Here's an update, free of opinion (well, my opinion at least).

Glazers' Financials in Spotlight

With Manchester United filing for an IPO in New York, details are being revealed of how the club has loaned money to its owners - and how debt has been paid by the Glazer family. Reuters has a good recap.

But also in interesting Glazer financial news this weekend, Bill Varian reports in the Tampa Bay Times that Hillsborough County is preparing to re-allocate $12 million in tax money set aside for a Buccaneers practice facility:

"It's not the Buccaneers' money," said commission Chairman Ken Hagan, a regular at Bucs games. "It's the taxpayers' money.

"With the increasingly challenging times we have, we cannot afford to leave that money in escrow."

Late last month, commissioners voted unanimously to start the process of taking that money back.

Of course, the Bucs have built something that looks a lot like a first-class practice facility. It opened on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in 2007 at a price estimated at more than three times the set-aside.
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But it's not the "practice facility" contemplated in the original stadium agreement.

That facility has yet to be built. And documents that called for reimbursement for its construction set no timetable for it to be built. Therefore, the county can't take back the money for the life of the agreement, which runs through 2028.

"We reserve our right to the $12 million allowance in perpetuity," Eric Land, former chief operating officer for the Buccaneers, told the Tampa Bay Times in 2007.

The Bucs didn't make a comment in the story, and it's not clear how tense the discussion would get between the team and the county.

However, any claim to the uncommitted money by the Bucs would seem to reinforce what I've written before: no matter how much revenues drop from tax collections, the money will always be there for sports teams.

To be continued...

Glazers File IPO for Manchester United

As first reported a month ago, the Glazer family will sell shares of Manchester United on the NYSE after filing an IPO on Tuesday, according to the New York Times:

The club set a preliminary fund-raising target of $100 million to determine registration fees. It had previously hoped to raise about $1 billion in either Hong Kong or Singapore. Manchester United had traded on the London Stock Exchange before Malcolm Glazer, an American who also controls the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team, took the company private in a $1.45 billion buyout in 2005.

In its prospectus on Tuesday, Manchester United, a soccer team founded by railway workers in 1878, says it qualifies as an “emerging growth company” under the Jumpstart Our Business Start-Ups Act of 2012 because it generated less than $1 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year. That exempts the team from some financial reporting requirements for up to five years, including having its internal controls approved by an auditor.

The filing also lays out a share structure that would allow the Glazer family to keep control of the team even while selling equity. Manchester United plans to sell an undisclosed number of Class A shares, which have one vote each. The Glazer family will hold Class B shares, which will have 10 votes apiece, effectively keeping the club’s management within its control.

The potential for Man. U - the most valuable sports franchise in the world - is great, even though the club hasn't profited very much the last few years. Part of the problem is the Glazers were paying outrageous interest rates on the majority of the team they financed, but a large 2010 payment helped alleviate the burden.

Glazers Bringing Man U to Amerca?

The world's most valuable sports franchise, Manchester United, will scrap its plans to go public on the stock markets of Asia and, instead, list in the U.S., according to Reuters:

After first eyeing a Hong Kong IPO, the former English soccer champions had planned a $1 billion listing in Singapore in the second half of last year before putting plans on hold because of market turmoil.

United, which has been English league champions a record 19 times and features players such as England's Wayne Rooney, declined to comment.

The U.S. listing would come either on the New York Stock Exchange or its electronic rival Nasdaq, which is under scrutiny after its systems bungled the debut of social media giant Facebook Inc last month, causing customer losses estimated of at least $100 million.
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The club's American proprietors, the Glazer family, are well known in the United States as owners of American football team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as well as First Allied Corp, which owns and leases shopping centers.

However, they have faced opposition from United fans after taking over the club in 2005 in a leveraged buyout that left it saddled with hefty debt repayments.

The advantage of an American IPO would be the Glazers could sell non-voting shares and retain more control of the team.

Odds & Ends: Malcolm Glazer Alive, Stu Sternberg Spending

While Malcolm Glazer may not be in the best of health (he hasn't been seen in public in years), Manchester United is claiming rumors about its owner's stroke are just that: rumors.

The Glazer family, who years ago could have topped the list of "Best Jewish Owners in Sports," did not crack the Top-10 this year, according to JewishJournal.com. The Rays' Stu Sternberg, however, was ranked No. 3. Take it all with a grain of salt, however, since the Patriots' Robert Kraft came in just 10th while the Redskins' Dan Snyder was No. 1?!?

Speaking of Sternberg, he deserves props for making a long-term committment to the Tampa Bay region.....in the form of academic scholarships. It may be a long time before he helps build a new stadium here (or he may not), but at least he'll be building something significant soon: scholars.

Finally, for those of you hoping Hillsborough County moves forward with the proposed port-for-Rays swap, don't hold your breath. The topic was shot down at a recent board meeting before it could even be brought up, and many "in-the-know" players in Tampa Bay say the idea is nothing more than a pipe dream. But it is a pleasant dream....

Glazers' Value Soaring

Forbes' estimates that Bucs and Manchester United owner Malcolm Glazer's net worth is now over $3 billion. That represents a tidy $420 million profit on ManU after some initial concerns about how the Glazer family financed the team:

"The increase in value for Manchester United comes partially from its 330 million-person fan base and its victory in the English Premier League last year. It also comes from the fact that the US dollar has fallen sharply versus the British pound. The currency fluctuation as inflated the value of the soccer team in dollars."

So even though the Glazers have plenty of detractors, they've proven some wrong by emerging from some well-publicized debt problems and questions about their finances.It should be noted, they're also spending big bucks on the Bucs this year.

Athletes and Political Contributions

You root for your favorite players on the field, but do you know whom they're rooting for off of it?

The 10 News Investigators identified more than 200 individual political contributions since 2007 from Tampa Bay athletes, teams, and sports executives. Hundreds more were identified from previous years.

Dave Andreychuk, Ronde Barber, Warren Sapp, Wade Boggs, George Steinbrenner, the Glazers, and Stu Sternberg are all among the names you'll find in the database.

You'll also learn how much teams and leagues pour into PACs and lobbying to maintain their comfortable "way of life," such as anti-trust and tax exemptions, blackout policies, relationships with gambling, and even the BCS.

Search the contributions and read about the trends here.

Forbes: Glazers 8th-Worst NFL Owners

The lastest Forbes list dissing Malcom Glazer & fam names them the 8th-worst owners in the NFL. The list "looked at teams’ change in franchise value and win percentages (including a bump for playoff and Super Bowl victories) over the last five years. Each factor accounts for half of their rank."

Forbes cites the Bucs' pedestrian 2% increase in franchise value since 2006 and just 44% winning percentage over that time.

Report: Glazers to Spend Millions on Stadium

Malcom Glazer & family certainly have their critics among Bucs fans, but it appears they're hoping to win some people over by kicking back millions of dollars to the community.

Just not the Tampa Bay community.

Reports out of New Orleans indicate the Glazers will join Saints owner Tom Benson in chipping in for a new stadium for the Tulane Green Wave. Of course, the Glazers should have some extra dough around - they didn't have to pay a dime for Raymond James Stadium.

Then again, realize Tulane U's difficult position - it's not like it can threaten to move to a new city if it doesn't get a new stadium.

Bucs to Honor Selmon; Nobody to Witness it

I had heard this question asked several times this week, but never so elequently as a Tampa Tribune reader did this morning:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are planning a tribute to Lee Roy Selmon during the Lions game on Sunday. Unfortunately, the game will most likely be blacked out in the local area, so the only fans who will see or hear the tribute will be those in attendance.

For months now we have heard how football, the National Football League and the Bucs are about the fans. If this is indeed true, I propose the Glazers do the right thing with Lee Roy's tribute and lift the blackout so that every fan in the area can be a part of it.

In the spirit of Lee Roy and giving back to the community, as he did, the Glazers should buy out the remaining tickets so the blackout is lifted, and then donate the tickets to firefighters, police officers and the local military. What better way to honor our first responders on the anniversary of 9/11 than on a day when we also honor one of Tampa's finest, Lee Roy Selmon.

A few years ago, the Glazers would have probably bought out the rest of the tickets. But there's a lot fewer fans than there used to be....and the Bucs aren't worth nearly what they used to be.

Last Time We Hear About Glazers' Financial Problems

After record profits, significant debt payment, and an impending IPO which could return another $1 biliion, it's safe to say the Glazers are is no longer over-extended.

The family, which also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has used the mega-marketing power of Manchester United to dig out of a hole after the economy collapsed in 2007/2008.

Although they seemed to have owed more than Man U was worth in 2010, Malcolm, Joel, Bryan, and company have seemed to have put the financial concerns behind them.

Update: Manchester United Seeks Singapore IPO

It was a month ago we saw the first reports from London that the Glazers may take Manchester United public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and today the Wall Street Journal reports the rumor was true...except the IPO will be in Singapore:

U.K. soccer club Manchester United Ltd. is planning to raise around $1 billion from a Singapore initial public offering in the fourth quarter, people familiar with the situation said Tuesday, in the latest foreign listing to tap Asia's funding markets.
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The club, which was once listed on the London Stock Exchange as Manchester United PLC, had initial planned to list in Hong Kong, but changed its mind and has now picked Singapore as a listing venue, the people said.

Singapore has been pushing to position itself as one of the preferred destinations for foreign listings in a bid to compete with Hong Kong, which this year has seen companies such as commodities giant Glencore International AG raise $10 billion ahead of London and Hong Kong listings in May, and Prada SpA, which raised $2.15 billion in June.
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Manchester United was delisted in 2005 after U.S. investor Malcolm Glazer bought the club.

Forbes this year ranked Manchester United as the world's most valuable football team in 2011, valuing the club at $1.86 billion. The club is one of U.K.'s most successful, having been crowned English league champions 19 times and European champions three times in its 133-year history.

Last week, reports indicated the Glazers, who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, would sell off between 15 and 25 percent of the club in its IPO, but a $1 billion offering would appear to be more than a quarter of the club's value.

REPORT: Glazers to Sell Part of Man U

Reports out of London are that the Glazer family, which also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, could sell off between 15 and 25 percent of Manchester United to get out from some of their well-documented debt problems:

Shares in Manchester United are again up for sale.

But the plan to put a stake of the world’s most famous football club back on the market will only strengthen the Glazer family’s grip on power at Old Trafford.

Sunday Mirror Sport understands that United’s reviled American owners are preparing to sell up to a quarter of the club in a move that could raise more than £400million.

That would enable them to slash the £500m debts that are currently costing United £45million-a-year to service.

And the Glazers would then be able to pay themselves – and other new investors – millions in dividends every year.

Investment giants UBS are advising on the sale which is called an Initial Public Offering.

The Glazers are looking to cash in on between 15% and 25% of United.

They value the club at £1.7billion – an astonishing increase on the £800m they paid when purchasing the Reds in an £800m leveraged buy-out that split the club apart in May 2005.

The report, from Sunday Mirror Sport, speculates the Glazers want to retain 75 percent of the club, and thus, full control.

Glazers May Go Public with Man. U

According to The Times in London, The Glazer family, owners of Manchester United and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, may go public with Man U. on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Marketwatch reports:

English football club Manchester United could have a GBP1.7 billion flotation in Hong Kong as its American owners study the possibility of the club's return to the public markets, the Sunday Times reports.

The report said the Glazer family have held talks with several investment banks on a plan to list the Premier League club on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It said advisers believe the strength of the club's brand and its following in Asia could attract a higher price for its shares in Hong Kong than in London.

However, the report also cited sources close to the discussions as saying that plans are still at an early stage and may come to nothing.

It said bankers have told the Florida-based Glazer family that the listing could value the club at GBP1.7 billion, or more than double the GBP790 million they paid for it in 2005 when the club was taken private.

A spokesman for the club couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

Could Glazers Bid on Dodgers?

With the Glazers' liquid assets seemingly stretched thin, this may not be worth the webpage it's printed on.

But with MLB taking over the Los Angeles Dodgers, could it be possible the owners of the Buccaneers make a bid for the franchise like they did in 2004?

Malcolm Glazer lost the franchise to Frank McCourt, who would be making a tidy profit on his $430 million purchase had a messy divorce not ruined his plans.

Back then, Glazer settled for buying Manchester United (not a bad consolation prize other than the fact that they financed the majority of their purchase and now that the interest has come due, the Brits can't wait for him to sell).

Nothing would make fans happier in Old Trafford than if the Glazers sold the soccer team. And sure, MLB would love to have a well-known, reputable family interested in buying the Dodgers. But it probably won't happen if for no other reason than Malcolm is no longer controlling the family's pursestrings.