Manchester United the first club to smash $1BILLION brand barrier, beating Real Madrid and Bayern Munich

Manchester United have beaten Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to reclaim their position as the biggest brand in world football, becoming the first club to pass the $1billion mark.

Despite another season without silverware, United have overcome Europe's big-hitters at the top of The Brand Finance Football 50, according to a study released on Monday.

The Red Devils are now worth just over $1.2bn (£787.5m), almost $300m more than second-placed Bayern. Real Madrid, Manchester City and Chelsea round out the top five.

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Manchester United have beaten Bayern Munich to reclaim their position as the biggest brand in world football

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The Red Devils are now worth over $1.2billion (£787.5million), almost $300million more than Bayern Munich

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Real Madrid have fallen to third in the table, with a value of $873million (£573m)

Barcelona's Champions League final victory over Juventus on Saturday added $28m to their brand value, but could not stop them falling two places to sixth below City and Chelsea - although their second Treble in six years will probably ease their pain.

Brand Finance CEO David Haigh said: 'Manchester United’s success has been masterminded by Ed Woodward, the Cristiano Ronaldo of football’s commercial sphere.

'As Sir Alex Ferguson developed United’s world-beating reputation, Woodward (and United’s owners the Glazers) capitalised on the brand’s growing power to establish a worldwide fan-base and a range of sponsorship deals unrivalled in their number and value.'

United also received another boost to their financial potency thanks to the record-breaking new UK broadcast deal for Premier League rights commencing from the 2016-17 season worth $7.8bn (£5.1bn).

Southampton, thanks in part to their recent successes under former manager Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman, are this year's fastest-growing brand. The Saints' brand value is up 89 per cent to $183m (£120m). 

BRAND STRENGTH, REVENUE AND ROYALTY RATE: HOW IT'S CALCULATED

Brand Finance calculates the values of the brands in its league tables using the ‘Royalty Relief approach’. This approach involves estimating the likely future sales that are attributable to a brand and calculating a royalty rate that would be charged for the use of the brand, i.e. what the owner would have to pay for the use of the brand if it were not already owned.

1) Calculate brand strength on a scale of 0 to 100: the Brand Strength Index (BSI) captures the ability of clubs to drum up popular interest and then convert interest into support and custom.

2) As brand has differing effects on each source of income, we then split revenues down into three streams: matchday, broadcasting and commercial.

3) Calculate royalty rate. The brand strength score is applied to the royalty rate range to arrive at a royalty rate. For example, if the royalty rate range in a brand’s sector is 0-5 per cent and a brand has a brand strength score of 80 out of 100, then an appropriate royalty rate for the use of this brand in the given sector will be 4 per cent.

4) Determine brand specific revenues estimating a proportion of parent company revenues attributable to a specific brand.

5) Determine forecast brand specific revenues using a function of historic revenues, equity analyst forecasts and economic growth rates.

6) Apply the royalty rate to the forecast revenues to derive brand revenues.

7) Brand revenues are discounted post tax to a net present value, equal to the brand value.

West Ham are another club to benefit from the windfall. The Hammers’ 86 per cent growth puts them in the top 20 for the first time, with a brand value of $209m (£137m). And they are set to get even bigger over the next few years as they prepare for a move to the Olympic Stadium in 2016.

Despite their run to the Champions League final and domestic double in Italy, Juventus have missed out on a place in the top 10. They are the highest-ranked Serie A club in 11th place. 

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Despite Barcelona's Champions League victory they fell two places in the brand value table

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Southampton's brand value is up 89 per cent to $183m (£120m) from last year

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Juventus have missed out on a place in the top 10 despite making the Champions League final

Overall, the the top 50 is made of 17 of 20 clubs who were in the Premier League last season. Unsurprisingly it is the relegated trio of Hull City, Burnley and QPR who missed out.

Nine of the teams are from Germany, seven from Serie A, just five from Spain, four from France and eight from other league's including Portugal, Scotland, Turkey and Brazil.

You can see the full table here: 

THE BRAND VALUE 50 - RANKING THE WORLD'S BIGGEST CLUBS

Rank	Club	Brand value (US$m)	2014 rank	Change since 2014 (US$m)
1	Manchester United	1,206	3	467
2	Bayern Munich	933	1	36
3	Real Madrid	873	2	104
4	Manchester City	800	5	290
5	Chelsea	795	7	293
6	Barcelona	773	4	151
7	Arsenal	703	6	198
8	Liverpool	577	8	108
9	Paris Saint-Germain	541	10	217
10	Tottenham Hotspur	360	12	111
11	Juventus	350	13	103
12	Borussia Dortmund	326	9	-1
13	Schalke	302	11	-12
14	AC Milan	244	14	8
15	Everton	228	20	107
16	West Ham United	209	24	97
17	AS Monaco	202	New	(n/a)
18	Southampton	183	30	86
19	Galatasaray	177	17	36
20	Inter Milan	160	15	7
21	Aston Villa	155	23	40
22	Newcastle	155	27	53
23	Atletico Madrid	151	19	24
24	Napoli	147	21	27
25	Ajax	145	16	-4
26	Stoke City	140	41	65
27	Swansea	135	New	(n/a)
28	Bayer Leverkusen	135	22	19
29	Sunderland	134	32	40
30	Crystal Palace	133	New	(n/a)
31	Marseille	129	33	38
32	Stuttgart	121	28	19
33	Fenerbahce	120	35	33
34	Celtic	120	38	36
35	Roma	117	26	9
36	Wolfsburg	116	34	25
37	West Brom	115	42	42
38	Lyon	111	25	1
39	Valencia	107	29	8
40	Benfica	103	39	20
41	Hamburg	103	18	-35
42	Leicester City	102	New	(n/a)
43	Sao Paulo	95	48	40
44	Werder Bremen	88	31	-6
45	B Monchengladbach	86	New	(n/a)
46	PSV Eindhoven	86	45	27
47	Sevilla	81	40	4
48	Corinthians	79	36	-8
49	Lazio	78	44	16
50	Fiorentina	76	New	(n/a)

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