New Yorkers

Hey, do you buy the New York Times? Could any of you scan the pages in which they have a special research on Real Madrid? It\'s in the newspaper of yesterday (Sunday).

I can get this article for you from Lexis, but I\'ll need about one more day.  Unfortunately, my company\'s network is still messed up from all the losers who didn\'t bother to install the worm patch.

Is this what you were thinking of?  Published Friday August 15th.

Daly, Emma.  "Soccer Team of Century Enters Age of Marketing."  New York Times.  (8/15/03) Section W; Page 1; Column 3; Business/Financial Desk

BODY:
No soccer club in the world has won as many laurels as the 101-year-old Real Madrid, named Club of the 20th Century by the sport\'s international governing body, FIFA. But only since 2000 has it begun to turn sporting triumph into business glory.

After years in the red, a new president has turned the business operation around and Real Madrid is now thought to be the world\'s richest soccer club, overtaking the English Premier League giant Manchester United, previously the undisputed champions of milking its history and success on the field for all it is worth.

The trophy room at the 75,000-seat Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid is packed with silver cups, including an unrivaled nine European club championships, and numerous domestic awards. The souvenir shop has temporarily run out of players\' jerseys, which sell for 60 to 78 euros (roughly $70 to $88).

Yet the accounts were awash in red ink when the club\'s 75,000 paid members elected Florentino Perez president in the summer of 2000, on the audacious and seemingly far-fetched promise of signing the Portuguese star Luis Figo away from Barcelona, Real Madrid\'s deadliest rival in the Primera Liga of Spain.

Mr. Perez snatched victory from the incumbent and Mr. Figo moved to Real Madrid at a cost of 62 million euros, becoming the first of a string of superstars lured to the club.

In 2001, Mr. Perez, who founded Europe\'s second-largest construction company and who described the Real Madrid club as his hobby, signed Zinedine Zidane of France for a record-breaking 75 million euros; in 2002 it was the Brazilian striker Ronaldo for 47 million euros.

And in June, more than 500 reporters attended the presentation of England\'s darling, David Beckham, who moved to Real Madrid from Manchester United for 35 million euros.

That day alone, Real Madrid sold 8,000 Beckham jerseys, according to Spanish newspapers.

The policy is clear: pack Real Madrid with fabulous players, raise its game and so its global profile, and then sell its famous white shirts, sponsorship and television rights. It has become a global content provider, with revenue split among ticket sales, audio-visual rights -- the sale of domestic and foreign television, broadcast, cable and satellite, and radio broadcasts, DVD\'s, videos, etc. -- and merchandising.

The model, said Jose-Angel Sanchez, the club\'s marketing director, is the entertainment world; just as movie sales depend on the caliber of the star, so, "no player sells shirts unless he is a phenomenon on the field."

Real Madrid has a long and distinguished sports history, yet its accounts in 2001 showed an operating loss of more than 86 million euros, and adding in its debt service, the loss totaled 102 million euros.

Only by including an extraordinary gain of 144 million euros, thanks to the sale of future merchandising rights, was the club able to post a paper profit. That merchandising deal, with Grupo Caja Madrid, a local savings and loan, and Sogecable, a media group, also allowed Real Madrid to buy back the rights, leading critics to suggest it was really a hidden loan.

Both companies have close links to the club. Caja Madrid is a savings bank operated by the city of Madrid, while Sogecable is a major media group that owns one of the top satellite/digital TV companies that broadcasts soccer games. Real Madrid has not exercised its option to buy back its merchandising rights.

In 2002, the accounts also included gains, this time of more than 400 million euros, thanks to a controversial land deal that cleared the club\'s heavy debt burden.

Mr. Perez, who is politically and socially well connected to almost everyone in Spain, persuaded Madrid\'s city hall to allow development of the club\'s training grounds, which sit at one end of the city\'s main artery. The club then sold the land to developers. About 20 percent of profits from the land sale were included in the results for fiscal 2003, which ended in June.

Thanks in part to these operations, Mr. Sanchez says that Real Madrid\'s 2004 accounts will, for the first time in 40 years, show a profit without embellishment from any extraordinary gains. Furthermore, he says, since June 2001, income from ticket sales and audio-visual rights has doubled, while merchandising income has increased to 90 million euros from 17 million euros in June of this year. He expects merchandising to account for almost 40 percent of the 240 million euros Real Madrid expects to earn by June 2004.

"Real Madrid today is a club with healthy accounts that is making money," Mr. Sanchez said in an interview in Madrid. "Never before has a football team contained so many personalities -- that enriches the brand, and it enriches them."

World Soccer magazine has begun to compile an annual list of the richest soccer clubs, and in June it ranked Real Madrid as No. 1.

"It is basically money we estimated the clubs to have earned from the value of their badge, their appeal to fans, from merchandising, television revenue, gate receipts, and we estimated Real Madrid to have the highest annual figure, ahead of Manchester United, for the first time," Gavin Hamilton, editor of the magazine, said in a telephone interview.

"They have extended their appeal worldwide through their strategy of buying the top players. Someone like Zidane has an appeal in the Arab markets, Ronaldo has appeal in Japanese markets and the Far East," he said. "They are hoping Beckham will appeal to the Far East and also America." Mr. Beckham has rock-star status in Japan, among other Asian nations.

This month, Real Madrid played four exhibition matches in Asia as part of its preseason warm-up, earning more than 8 million euros -- Mr. Sanchez was coy about giving the exact figures for the tour, but noted that the club was not paying for any expenses. Two of those games will be played in China, a rapidly growing market that every team wants to claim.

But next year Real Madrid will almost certainly tour the United States, where Manchester United has just had a sold-out tour. "We want to alternate between the U.S. and Asia," Mr. Sanchez said.

Mr. Perez is crucial to the club\'s current incarnation. Born in Madrid in 1947, he started in business in his 20\'s, when he and some friends founded the Guia del Ocio, the weekly guide to what is going on in Madrid. But his career took off in the mid-1980\'s when he and his partners bought two bankrupt construction companies for one peseta a share (less than 1 cent). A decade later, he was president of ACS, which today has a turnover of 10 billion euros.

In the meantime, Mr. Perez joined the centrist party that led Spain\'s first democratic government after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco. In 1979, he was elected a city councilor in Madrid, and then appointed to lead departments in the transport and agriculture ministries until 1982, when the Socialist Party won the general elections.

Despite his wealth, Mr. Perez, who is married and has three children, lives in a modest house and shirks millionaire trappings.
Mr. Perez also has good relations with the current ruling Popular Party -- ACS was the biggest winner of public works contracts from 1999 to 2001 -- but the club\'s main shareholders also had close ties to the Socialist leadership. Real Madrid has always been the establishment club: General Franco was a fan.

Nonetheless, Mr. Perez says the club should remain in the hands of its members. "No one believes in P.L.C.\'s more than I do," he told the Observer. Soccer, however, "belongs in the sphere of human emotions." "Real Madrid is a kind of religion for millions all over the world. You can\'t have that in the hands of one individual.
"It\'s as if the Catholic Church belonged to one person. It wouldn\'t be right."
 
GRAPHIC: Photos: Florentino Perez, president of the Real Madrid soccer club, has raised the already large profile of the team with the acquisitions of the celebrity players David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo. (Photo by Reuters); (Photo by Agence France-Presse)

hahah, thanx Coredweller.

EDIT: mmm, yep, it\'s. Thank you very much