Based on the assumption that there are very few dumb billionaires, Malcolm Glazer is working to a clever plan.
To fund his £790m takeover of Manchester United, the American businessman has borrowed £540m from investment bank JP Morgan, a debt that requires the club to increase average annual profits by at least £20m a year just to meet the interest payments.
Ticket and corporate hospitality price hikes will not be enough, despite a 7000-seat increase in stadium capacity next year. Glazer may use his local knowledge to crack the lucrative US market, where the United brand has yet to be exploited, but this remains a long-term goal.
More immediately, he is likely to set his sights on negotiating better deals for United's domestic and international media rights. Here, he has two broad options: work within the present system or attempt to blow it apart.
The latter would trigger the biggest change in the way football is financed since the launch of the Premier League in 1992.
Broadcast rights to Manchester United games are currently sold alongside those of every other Premier League club as a collective. Last autumn BSkyB paid £1.1bn for exclusive live Premiership rights in the UK until 2007, with the BBC adding £105m for the highlights package. International rights have been sold for £290m over the three years to the end of the 2006/07 season. Most of this comes from Asia, a territory that accounts for a major slice of United's estimated 75m global fan base.
Individual deals
The collective negotiation strategy has benefited the Premier League as a whole, but United has long envied the individual media rights arrangements enjoyed by the top Spanish and Italian clubs.
The TV income of Serie A side AC Milan, for example, totalled EUR134.4m (£89m) last year, according to accountancy firm Deloitte. A significant proportion of this sum comes from its deal with pay-TV platform Sky Italia, with which it has negotiated separately for live rights to its home games.
By comparison, United earned £33.8m from its share of the Premier League TV deal in 2003/04 and £62.5m when global rights are included.
In Italy, 60% of all television money goes to three teams: Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan. In Spain's La Liga, meanwhile, TV cash is focused on just two clubs: Real Madrid and Barcelona. In 2004/05, Real Madrid will take EUR52m (£35.8m) from domestic rights, 22.4% of the total; United, in contrast, is expected to earn £31m from the Premier League deal, only 7.8% of the total.
Few observers doubt that United would increase its media rights income given a free hand, though opponents of the open-market model argue that it would lead to further polarisation between the big clubs and the rest.
But the debate is still academic, as there are considerable legal barriers to a change in the collective bargaining strategy.
As Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, points out, the main barrier to United breaking away is its need to gain the support of other clubs in the League. 'If it wants to break away, 14 of the 20 Premiership clubs have to do it, and it is almost impossible to think that can happen.'
This scenario should not be dismissed out of hand, according to Jean-Paul de la Fuente, managing director of TV rights specialist Deureka, which has advised Manchester United and the G-14 group of top European clubs on their rights strategy. 'People forget that the Premier League itself was a significant change, as was the Champions League. It would be foolish to suggest major change will not happen again,' he says.
Club allies
Were Glazer to pursue a challenge, he may find support from two very different sources. A handful of other major English clubs, such as Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, may stand to benefit from a change in the status quo, and in any battle with the Premier League would probably view United as a Trojan horse, behind which they could follow their own commercial agenda.
Glazer may also find an unlikely ally in Brussels. The European Commission has for some time attempted to break the monopoly on live football enjoyed by BSkyB. The most recent rights deal was described by then-competition commissioner Mario Monti as 'anti-competitive, bad for football and a failure for consumers'.
Monti persuaded BSkyB to auction off six to eight top live games to the UK's free-to-air broadcasters. This initiative came to nothing, as the BBC and ITV balked at the asking price, but the EC's interest in the subject has not waned.
There is a long way to go before the Premier League TV rights are renegotiated for after 2007. In the meantime, the current deal does grant more flexibility to individual clubs than previous deals. Of all the games played over a season, there is some unused inventory, including delayed Premiership rights for use on club channels such as MUTV, friendly matches and international tours.
'Under the existing system a significant number of Manchester United matches are not transmitted live on television in the UK,' says de la Fuente. 'There is room for discussing how these games can be exploited and how the clubs can be allowed to make money through their own club channels, or on the open market. There is scope to do this while maintaining the essence of the collective agreements.'
Whether this is enough for Glazer, and his bankers, remains to be seen.
DATA FILE - FOOTBALL REVENUE
Total broadcast income for 2003/04 season
AC Milan £89.0m
Juventus £86.2m
Manchester United £62.5m
Domestic broadcast income for 2004/05 season
Premier League (England) £396m
Manchester United £31m (7.8% of total)
La Liga (Spain) £160m
Real Madrid £35.8m (22.4% of total)
Source: Deloitte