Having United ‘is like owning a Picasso or Van Gogh’

English football’s two most storied clubs are suddenly in play.

Manchester United have joined great rival Liverpool in opening their doors to a potential buyout that could be the biggest in sporting history.

Following the sale of Chelsea in May, it sets up the prospect of three of the biggest English Premier League clubs changing ownership in just a few months.

Newcastle were also bought by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund last year.

So why this relative, but rapid, flood on to the market?

The acquisition of Chelsea by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital was a unique case, with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich forced to sell after being sanctioned by the UK government for his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Still, it feels like a significant factor in what has followed.

For any would-be sellers out there, it established a definite interest from the world’s superrich wanting a piece of football’s most popular league.

Boehly and Clearlake fought off rival bids from Chicago Cubs owners the Ricketts family, Boston Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca and UK billionaire Jim Ratcliffe among many others.

A fee of £2.5 billion (HK$23.6 billion) for a team that has a smaller stadium than any of their elite Premier League rivals has set a marker for United and Liverpool, who have long-been the most popular in England, with enormous global reach.

United claims to have over 1 billion worldwide followers. They also have the biggest stadium in the Premier League. Old Trafford can hold more than 75,000 in contrast to Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, at 42,000.

“Using business fundamentals, any valuation doesn’t give you £2.5 billion for Chelsea,” Kieran Maguire, author of Price of Football, said. “If the UK government could get that for Chelsea, clubs run far more prudently could legitimately get more.

“I worked out Chelsea to be worth something like £1.5 billion in normal business circumstances. Chelsea was a forced sale.”

On that basis it appears anything goes in this market.

Maguire, who is also associate professor of football finance at Liverpool University, believes a figure of up to US$4.5 billion would be reasonable for United. But numbers well in excess of that have been widely circulating since the Glazers, who also own the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, announced plans to explore “strategic alternatives” last week.

“I’m reading figures of US$7 billion and that’s taken me aback,” Maguire said. “The world of finance is full of very confident people who like shouting out big numbers.”

Maguire said the lure of owning a sports team was about more than just business.

“If you are a billionaire, who are the people you associate with? You’ve got as much as everyone you know,” he said. “You’ve got the yacht, you’ve got the helicopter. If you’ve got Manchester United, you own the room. It’s like owning a Picasso or a Van Gogh. It’s a scarce piece of work.

“If you really wanted the Mona Lisa you would pay a huge price. Is Man United the Mona Lisa of football?”

The Glazer family will certainly see the business case to sell. Likewise, the Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool and this month confirmed it was open to selling shares in the club.

Late tycoon Malcolm Glazer bought United in 2005 for £790 million. The family stands to make a huge profit on that even by the most conservative valuations.

FSG bought Liverpool for £300 million in 2010 and would likely expect to command at least the same sale price as Chelsea.

But a buyer of United would likely have to embark on a redevelopment of their ageing stadium and gross debt was £636.1 million in United’s latest financial results published in September.