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They are less common in football.

What is common in football is talking about money — this season’s Premier League, for example, has almost been as influenced by financial fair play (FFP) regulations as it has by the play itself.

Sports-business analysis website Sportico has released a list of what it says are the sport’s 50 most valuable clubs — calculating revenue streams based on figures published by club accounts, before then using “team-specific multipliers”.

These multipliers are “based on multiple factors, including: historical sales, market (size, saturation and interest by prospective owners), strength of brand, on-field performance (historical and recent), terms of facility lease, debt burden and additional obligations, as well as expected future team and league economics”.

Business magazine Forbes also provides a similar catalogue — the Forbes Football Rich List.

Football is large and contains multitudes, such as culture, politics, and romance.

The Premier League would be the obvious guess.

But 20 clubs in Sportico’s list are from Major League Soccer (MLS) — just under 70 per cent of the entire league.

Los Angeles FC ($1.15bn) are the highest-ranked MLS club at 15th, but Atlanta United, Inter Miami, LA Galaxy and New York City FC all make the top 20, too.

While big-city sides from the North American league are towards the top of the list, smaller markets are also represented in a boon to MLS’ development — the likes of Austin FC (21st), Portland Timbers (30th), Columbus Crew (37th), FC Cincinnati (38th), and Nashville SC (40th).

Los Angeles FC supporters celebrate a goal last month (Harry How/Getty Images)

There may be confusion over this.

The majority of those clubs are not household names in Europe, the way Premier League teams are among the sport’s fans in the United States.

“We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending.”

Perhaps it’s time to add another category to those three — football club ownership.

On top of 19 MLS clubs (a 20th team on the list, Toronto FC, are Canadian-owned), a further eight clubs among the 50 are at least part-owned by American individuals or companies, including Manchester United (first), Liverpool (fourth), Arsenal (eighth), Chelsea (10th), AC Milan (14th), Lyon (23rd) and Roma (24th).

That is a total of 27 — over half the list.

Liverpool have won both the Premier League and Champions League under American ownership (Clive Mason/Getty Images)

In the Premier League, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that 14 of its 20 clubs — the number needed to secure a decision-making majority, could be American-owned in the next two years.

Football — the global sport — is increasingly becoming an American sport.

The Premier League is still top dog in Europe

After the 20 teams from MLS, the next most-represented league is, unsurprisingly, the Premier League with nine clubs: Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City (sixth), Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur (ninth), Chelsea, West Ham United (27th), Newcastle United (32nd) and Aston Villa (44th).

Italy’s Serie A has six clubs included — Juventus (11th), Milan, Inter Milan (16th), Roma, Napoli (33rd) and Atalanta (45th) — although you’ll notice that none of them are in the top 10.

Germany has four — Bayern Munich (fifth), Borussia Dortmund (12th), RB Leipzig (43rd) and Eintracht Frankfurt (46th).

Spain’s TV revenue distribution is the most unequal of Europe’s top five leagues.

Though Girona, part of City Football Group, are second in the league with four games to go, they are nowhere near the top 50, having only been promoted to the top flight at the end of the 2021-22 season, and seem unlikely to prove regular sparring partners for the big three.

GO DEEPER

Real Madrid's 'dystopian' dominance - Barcelona and La Liga rivals are way behind

Barcelona and the Madrid clubs mean the Spanish league will always have a sharp end — but the demise of fairly-recently successful sides Malaga (2012-13 Champions League quarter-finalists) and Deportivo La Coruna (semi-finalists in the same competition in 2003-04), both now playing in the regional third tier, shows how vulnerable some of the country’s clubs can be.

It is just one statistic, but La Liga’s stadium-fill figure is 83 per cent, compared to the Premier League’s 97 per cent, illustrating some of the issues hiding behind the top three.

El Clasico is La Liga’s big show, but are Madrid and Barca too dominant?

Forbes, incidentally, places Madrid higher, as well as Barcelona — it hasn’t put United top since 2018.

United have struggled on the pitch since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson as their manager — they are without a Premier League trophy since his final season of 2012-13, and are just eighth in the league table with three games to go, but their position in Sportico’s list shows just how strong their brand remains.

Though five clubs produce more revenue than United’s $778million (Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, City, PSG), their global fanbase, position in the strongest league, and massive deal with Adidas all help their valuation.’

INEOS’ recent acquisition of 25 per cent of the club for $1.3billion would value the entire operation at over $5.2bn.

Everton’s troubles underscored

Everton have played more seasons of top-flight football than any other English club, are founder members of the Premier League, and are soon to move into a state-of-the-art dockside stadium.

Yet current owner Farhad Moshiri cannot find suitable buyers — and Everton’s failure to crack the top 50 underscores their difficulties.

A quick refresher.

Moshiri has agreed a deal worth some $685million (£548m at the current exchange rate) with Miami-based 777 Partners, but that looks set to collapse amid doubts over 777’s funding and accusations of fraud in a U.S.
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