Quick note: remember how I mentioned recently that Manchester United is now, in an odd twist, effectively sponsored by the US government (since the Fed has bailed out AIG)? Well, no more.
The AP says that AIG won’t be renewing the deal. No surprise there.
(Via the New York Times‘s soccer blog, Goal.) ((And thanks to Jon for the heads-up comment on my original post.))
There was a time when it bothered me that most Americans don’t appreciate football (soccer). I love the game. I always have. Why, I wondered, doesn’t everyone in the US think it’s the Best Sport Ever Created?
These days, though, I’m not hung up on the issue. As Dave Eggers wrote in his contribution to the excellent book The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup
In an interesting twist, however, the US government has now effectively become the official sponsor of Manchester United, perhaps the world’s biggest and most successful soccer club.
How is that, you ask?
Well, in September, 2008, insurance behemoth AIG was given a US$85 billion bailout by the US federal reserve. AIG is Manchester United’s “principal sponsor,” and the AIG logo is emblazoned on the Man U shirt (see above). It’s a four-year deal in which AIG pays Manchester United US$102.9 million in total, or roughly US$25 million per year.
So, here’s some back of the envelope math: Man U pays Cristiano Ronaldo, 2008’s FIFA world player of the year, approximately US$9 million per year in wages as part of a five-year contract. So the AIG money — which now comes from what could be argued is essentially a nationalized US asset — represents almost three times Ronaldo’s yearly salary.
Who’d have seen that coming?
I might have to switch my allegiance from Arsenal to Man U. It would be the patriotic thing to do.