Stan Kroenke could sell Arsenal for ‘£10bn’ but this one thing needs to happen first
Stan Kroenke could sell Arsenal for £10bn if football’s financial structures are changed in the favour of the American owner, Arsenal Insider understands.
Kroenke’s financial power was revealed in a report by CNBC earlier this month with the Arsenal owners topping the charts in terms of sports empires around the world.
The club have already flexed their financial muscles this summer in the transfer window with the acquisitions of Noni Madueke and Martin Zubimendi in deals worth in excess of £50m.
Viktor Gyokeres is also on his way to North London in a deal worth around £65m but with the financial world ever-changing in football, could Kroenke be tempted to sell in the future for a huge profit?
READ MORE: Winners and losers from Viktor Gyokeres to Arsenal transfer including Mikel Arteta and £78m star
Arsenal are the ‘outlier’ in Stan Kroenke’s sporting empire
Arsenal fans have been desperate for the club to show more ambition in the transfer market over the last few years and that feeling was echoed by manager Mikel Arteta back in January.
However, Arsenal Insider’s finance expert Adam Williams has explained that the Gunners have the biggest potential inside Kroenke’s sports empire but require patience given the financial constraints around in football.
Williams stated: “In many ways, Arsenal are the outlier in the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment portfolio. Of the main teams, they are the only one not to have won the top domestic honour available to them under Kroenke’s ownership. You typically don’t get into sports ownership without a bit of an ego, so that’s something the billionaire will want to correct as soon as possible.
“The reality is, however, that it’s far, far more expensive to compete in the Premier League and Champions League than it is in the NBA, NFL or the NHL. In those leagues, you know that for every dollar you spend, you’re going to make a profit.
“That’s how the competitions are set up – they have salary caps, luxury taxes, discovery rights, and a co-operative approach to doing business which guarantee that your revenue will always exceed your costs.”
Stan Kroenke could make serious profit on Arsenal purchase
Whilst there are no current plans for the Kroenkes to sell the club, with success on the pitch and creativity in the commercial aspects of the game, there could be a huge profit for the owners to make on the club in the future.
Arsenal are looking for new sponsorship deals after they are reportedly set to end their current deal with the energy drink ‘Prime’ and it is these new partnerships that continue to grow the club’s value.
Williams explained: “In football, it’s very different. Kroenke has invested about £800m to buy Arsenal outright, plus another £350m or so in shareholder loans, which he isn’t going to redeem any time soon.
“He hasn’t take a penny out of the club meanwhile, apart from the occasional very modest management fee in his early years at the Emirates.
“Yet still, many analysts would suggest that Arsenal have the biggest value potential out of any of the teams in the Kroenke network. Why? Because of their global potential. Arsenal have fans all over the world, while American sport is more parochial.
“Still, it’s going to be a long time before Kroenke makes any serious money from Arsenal, and I think there will have to be a lot of real structural changes in football’s wider financial ecosystem if he is going to justify the valuation of the club. But if those things happen, Arsenal can be a £10bn or more asset in time.
“Chelsea owner Todd Boehly said something interesting recently. He claimed that when you have the kind of IP that a historic, elite football club owns, you’re only limited by your creativity.
“The same is true for Arsenal, but it’s a matter of how you expand commercially while keeping costs down and competing on the pitch. If and when they find that balance, the £1bn-plus that Kroenke has invested in Arsenal will look like a bargain.”