XRAY - Model racing cars

When Deloitte released the inaugural edition of their superb Football Money League table, Arsenal pipped Manchester United at the post to claim the BPL title, Real were crowned European Champions, Jean Chrétien was our prime minister, Bill Clinton was on the verge of been impeached and, with the additions of the Miami Fusion and the Chicage Fire, MLS was in the throes of its third season. Meanwhile, having just celebrated his third birthday, Cristiano Ronaldo was likely dreaming of one day leading his team out at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu in a Champions League semi-final against Manchester United. Back then, English football’s winningest club had just been anointed by Deloitte as the richest club in all of world football. Trailing in their wake, and by quite a distance, was Real Madrid in the runners-up spot and Bayern Munich rounded out the podium. Not much has changed, you’re thinking. Well, think again. Back then, Manchester United and Real Madrid’s combined income was ￡160 million ($285 million.) Today, that figure for the biggest one-two knockout combination in all of world football has grown in astronomic proportions. They now sit at a truly mind-boggling €1.064 billion and growing. This works out to a jaw-dropping $1.425 Billion. From my economic perch, this represents, over the lifetime of the Deloitte Football Money League, an almost tenfold increase in incomes. Their inaugural edition represented income garnered from the 1997-1998 season. Following the release of the most up-to-date and 18th edition earlier in the week, it confirmed that, not only did Real Madid win a fabled Decima in Lisbon last May,the Spanish giants have monopolized top spot with Deloitte FC for exactly a decade now. What’s that they say about success on and off the pitch going hand in glove with each other? According to Deloitte for 2013/2014, Los Merengues banked €549.5 million, the equivalent of almost $2 million a day every day for an entire year. If Real spent it all on player acquisitions last summer, they could have bought themselves a Galactico XI made up entirely of 11 Gareth Bales or six Lionel Messis. One wonders how many jerseys that team could have sold. It’s no surprise and based purely on the unprecedented multi-billion-dollar global broadcast deal, which kicked in last season, that the Barclays Premier League dominated Deloitte’s Football Money League table to the point that half of all clubs that make up the BPL now feature in the Deloitte top 20. Just like our traditional leagues - be it the NBA, NHL or NFL - soccer clubs have three core revenue streams. These are comprised of commercial, matchday and broadcast. Over the lifetime of the Deloitte Rich List, a trend which has emerged is that matchday revenues have become a shrinking percentage of the overall revenue. The reason for this is twofold. Very few clubs have seen increase in stadium attendances. Alongside this, the commercial side of football continues to grow at an increasing pace. In some cases, especially for those at the very top, their substantial rises in commercial income evoke irrational exuberance. Take Manchester United as example. Their new jersey sponsor, Chevrolet, who came on board at the start of this season, are reported to have signed a seven-year deal which will pay the Old Trafford club ￡53 million each and every year. Thanks to the Bank of Canada rate cut earlier in the week, that now works out the price of a pint and pie shy of $100 million per season. To secure such an iconic jersey, Chevrolet had to pay over 50 per cent more this season than insurance giant Aon had to for the 2013/2014 one. Not a shabby raise in pay by any stretch of the imagination. No wonder Gary Bettman looks on with envy. Theres no truth to the rumours, though, that 1-800-GOT-JUNK are in negotiations with the Leafs. Not done there. The club that Wayne Rooney captains starting next season will switch out of the Swoosh for those three stripes next season. Their bill? ￡75 million per season. Adidass deal with Manchester United stretches a decade long. You do the math. Manchester United’s close to $1.5 billion apparel deal dwarfs any figure in all of world sport. Those world famous Yankee Pinstripes might now begin thinking, just as NYCFC hit the training pitch ahead of their expansion season, they’ve teamed up with the wrong Manchester outfit. So when we factor in just jersey and jersey sponsor-income - before Manchester United have even sold one of their tens of thousands of season ticket or the first pint is drunk of the hundreds of thousands which are poured each season at Old Trafford - the club Malcolm Glazer built into a highly self-sustainable global entity has already banked a cool quarter of a billion Canadian dollars. No wonder in this modern age of UEFA Financial Fair Play, it is no surprise to now know why the team that finished 2013/2014 well out of a lucrative Champions League spot and dropped from first to seventh in the BPL standing were still in such a tremendously liquid financial position to invest over ￡150 million ($290 million) on upgrades to the talent pool last summer. Im still not sure if the $100 million invested in securing the full time services of Argentine winger Angel Di Maria or lavishing over $25 million for borrowing Radamel Falcao from the tax haven that is Monaco for nine months will be looked back in time as the very best player investments of all time at Old Trafford. A fool and his gold are often parted, they say. At those prices, though, Juan Mata at ￡37 million this time last year almost sounds like a bargain. Let’s hope for the sake of the diminutive Spaniard he doesn’t become a tax write-off this summer. Louis Van Gaal might be the manager, but the boss these days at Old Trafford was likely schooled at Harvard. In lieu of BPL titles, they most certainly possess an MBA or two. Another disturbing trend we can garner from Deloitte over the past few seasons is that an immense divide is opening up between the haves and have-nots of European football. Plain and simple, Mr. Platini, your football rich have become more enriched, whilst UEFAs football poor are slipping further from the grasp to be in position to challenge for honours as agents for elite talent are not even returning their calls. Even the might of Juventus barely scrape into Deloitte’s top 10 these days. Amongst the top two or three in world football at the start of the millennium, it is no shock to learn that since 2006’s Calciopoli scandal, which rocked Italian football to the core and saw Juventus demoted and stripped of a pair of Serie A titles, their fortunes off the pitch have suffered a most dramatic decline. Such is the overall dominance and influence in the business of football by English club and one that is expected to grow over the short and mid-run, the blue half of Merseyside is the 10th-richest in England. Good for 20th in Deloitte’s table with income last season according to Deloitte of €144.1 million, Everton’s income expressed in USD terms works out at even $150 million. A certain just retired US player spent two very successful loan periods at Goodison Park and Landon Donovan certainly proved over his time with Everton that American footballers could most certainly live and thrive in the rarified BPL area. If Don Garber and his band of merry MLS men genuinely harbour intentions that by 2022 North America’s top tier of football is mentioned in the same breath as the finest leagues on planet futbol, the very first indicator we will get for that is when either the LA Galaxy, or maybe even New York City FC, will feature in Deloitte’s Football Money League. Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca @TheSoccerNoel on Twitter . Gustafsson controlled the first round after getting top position on a throw, and came out much more forcefully in the second, buckling Manuwa with a Muay Thai knee, and finishing him off with strikes on the ground. . Poti played in 824 regular NHL games with four teams in his career; the Edmonton Oilers, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and the Washington Capitals. http://www.nflchinacheapjerseysstore.us.com/. -- Another baseball tradition is about to largely disappear: a manager, with a crazed look in his eyes, charging the field and getting into a face-to-face shouting match with an umpire. .com) - A pair of programs shooting for their 10th win of the season get together at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, as the NC State Wolfpack tangle with 22nd-ranked West Virginia during the challenge round of the Gotham Classic. . He learned about pressure and expectations at the 2010 Games in his hometown of Vancouver. His next mission is to build on that experience at his next Olympic appearance in Sochi, where he plans to ride the momentum from the teams strong start to the season.EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. – Darryl Sutter was at his sarcastic best on Sunday. "Yeah, Im not rattled," the Los Angeles Kings head coach said when asked about overcoming the Game 4 loss to Anaheim. "Im just thankful Im alive today. Im fortunate to pull through after the devastating loss last night." Sutter joked that he almost didnt make it to his daily media interrogation. "They had to get me up – Radar and Hawkeye had to get me up to come here today," said Sutter, referencing characters from the television show M*A*S*H. The point was clear: this is a veteran coach with a veteran team that isnt about to be fazed by losing two straight or by facing a hotshot young goalie. The Kings lost 20 games during the regular season when outshooting an opponent. Only the New York Rangers (22) and Calgary Flames (21) were ahead of them in that category. So what happened on Saturday night, when they outshot the Ducks 28-14 overall and 19-3 over the last two periods, but still came out on the short end of the scoreboard, is old hat and thus not worth losing too much sleep over. "Pretty nice out here today," said forward Jarret Stoll. "Sun came out. Its Mothers Day and my moms here so itll be a good off day." Meanwhile, about 30 miles down the road in Anaheim, John Gibson had already been named the Ducks starter for Game 5. Only hours earlier he had become the youngest goalie in NHL history to post a shutout in his playoff debut. It was only his fourth career NHL game. Hes stopped 111 of the 115 shots faced in those games (.965 save percentage). It has been a remarkable start to the 20-year-olds career. "I know hes calm and cool or whatever, but its our job to make his job a lot harder," said Kings forward Mike Richards. "Its a lot of pressure to put on a young kid [playing him in this series] and you can say it all you want, Hes calm, cool, but if we start getting bodies in front we dont know how hes going to react." Los Angeles had 25 shots blocked on Saturday and missed on 18 other attempts. "Most of the goalies in the league are pretty much the same," said defenceman Drew Doughty. "We have a little sheet that we [get] before the game and its pretty much the same things: whether he handles the puck well, hes usually not good in traffic like any goalie, not good with screens, tips, so thats exactly what we have to do. We have to get the ssecond opportunities and put them in.dddddddddddd We just got to bear down and get more goals. "It shouldnt matter whos in net." Thats basically the exact same message players on the Ducks were telling anyone who would listen after they dropped the first two games at home despite outshooting the Kings and controlling the lions share of possession. Now the shoe is very much on the other foot. "The playoffs, really, is about scoring big goals and we were doing that early in the series and winning games that way and theyre doing that now," Doughty said. "We want to have possession of the puck and take control of the game like we did in the last two periods last night, but we got to score big goals." Considering the Kings track record and championship pedigree they are far from flustered. After staring into the abyss of an 0-3 deficit in the last round against the San Jose Sharks they arent about to let a rookie goalie get in their heads. So there was no cram session on Sunday featuring video of Gibson. After all, Gibson isnt the issue. "I dont think weve played poorly," said Richards, "but we just havent gotten to that desperation level that we had in San Jose where youre just fighting for every inch on the ice, and I think thats that mentality that we have to get back to." The Kings will get a chance to up their intensity level on Monday night at the Honda Center when the series resumes. But Sunday was all about mothers. And Sutter had already placed a call to his mom before meeting with the media. "Yeah, I did," he acknowledged. "But she was in church. I shouldve known to call later. Thats the last thing I told the players. Make sure they talk to their moms or a mother in their life today." Stoll wont have to make a call. His mom, Sherri, is in town and he planned on spending the day with her. "She loved the cowbell," said Stoll, a Saskatchewan native, when asked about his favourite hockey-mom memory. "We had a group of parents who were the loudest group of parents who followed their sons around and my mom had the big cowbell that shed hammer on and Im sure it was pretty annoying for some people and you look up in the stands and Im like, Thats my mom." As for Sutter, he was asked if had any special plans for Mothers Day. "Oh no," he said sarcastically. "Im going to go watch some video on Gibson." ' ' '