Some of you will be asking how it hopes to achieve that much bang for its bucks. Others will be wondering where\/when 49ers Enterprises said all that.<\/p>\n
The answer to the second question is that the American sports investment firm wrote it in the \u201c2025 Investment Summary\u201d 50-slide pitch deck sent to interested parties this summer, copies of which found their way to us and football website TBR<\/a>. More interestingly, 49ers Enterprises also claimed last season\u2019s Championship winners<\/a> are worth \u00a3527.45million now, but should be worth \u00a31billion in 2030.<\/p>\n And the answer to the first question is explained in the 50-slide deck, which has been leaked. Here, The Athletic explains the contents of the presentation.<\/p>\n \u2018Our track record\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n When 49ers Enterprises first bought 15 per cent of Leeds in 2018, there was some confusion as to who had just invested. While the firm is closely linked to the principal owners of the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>, the York family, it is not quite true to say the Yorks own Leeds, too.<\/p>\n The best way to think of 49ers Enterprises is to see it as a private equity firm they set up to invest in other sports assets with other rich folk. 49ers Enterprises is the lead investor in an even wider group of rich folk who have bought Leeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n But even with those caveats, any discussion of the firm\u2019s credentials begins with the NFL team, which was valued at $8.6billion (\u00a36.4bn) this year when three local families joined the Yorks in the owners\u2019 suite.<\/p>\n The Leeds deck points out that the 49ers moved to a new home, the 68,500-seat Levi\u2019s Stadium, in 2014. It has the second-highest ticket revenue in the league. It has already hosted one Super Bowl in 2016 and is staging the next one<\/a> in February, as well as six games at next year\u2019s World Cup. The message is clear: we do stadiums.<\/p>\n The next slide is about \u201cvalue creation\u201d, with a headline claim that 49ers Enterprises has \u201ccreated over $1billion of enterprise value\u201d since it was set up in 2015. It claims its advisory work for NWSL expansion team Bay FC<\/a> and the U.S.-based Major League Cricket<\/a> has realised $150million in value, while Elevate Sports Ventures, its joint venture with Harris Blitzer<\/a> Sports Entertainment and Oak View Group, is now worth more than $500million.<\/p>\n In terms of Leeds, it says it originally invested \u00a375million and that is now worth more than \u00a3500m. It does not mention the large sums the ownership syndicate has needed to pump into the club over the last seven years, including the \u00a3120m it is seeking with this sales pitch.<\/p>\n Levi\u2019s Stadium will host next year\u2019s Super Bowl and six World Cup games (Ezra Shaw\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n The next slide is all about \u201cbrand uplift and operational expertise\u201d, with a reference to the combined audiences of the 49ers, Leeds and Major League Cricket equalling \u201cexponential\u201d growth in the club\u2019s \u201caddressable market\u201d.<\/p>\n We then move on to the leadership team, with a particular focus on the 2023 hires of first-team manager Daniel Farke, chief operating officer Morrie Eisenberg, chief strategy officer Robbie Evans<\/a> and technical director Gretar Steinsson, who they poached from Tottenham Hotspur, and the 2025 addition of former Premier League chairman Peter McCormick, who joined as executive vice-chairman last year.<\/p>\n This leads to five examples of commercial growth between \u201cthe last time the club was in the EFL (English Football League)\u201d in 2020 and last season\u2019s promotion campaign. Leeds\u2019 \u201cdigital footprint\u201d has grown by 40 per cent, likewise its ticketing revenue, with retail income up 50 per cent and premium hospitality more than doubled.<\/p>\n But the real upside is from sponsorship, largely thanks to energy-drink giant Red Bull becoming a minority partner<\/a> and putting its logo on the front of Leeds\u2019 shirts. The deal is worth an EFL record and more than double what Leeds were earning the last time they were in the Premier League.<\/p>\n Ao Tanaka wearing Leeds\u2019 Red Bull-fronted shirt in the 1-0 win against Everton (Michael Regan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n We then get five slides on player recruitment. The message here is Leeds have a proper plan. The owner group sets a budget, the football leadership establishes \u201cnon-negotiable\u201d technical and physical criteria, and the data team refines the search for the scouts to do the eye test.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never fall in love with one player and are strict in our process \u2014 all inbound players will have a projected exit value,\u201d they promise, before stating the goal of becoming a \u201ctop-five English \u2018data club\u2019 in 2025\u201d.<\/p>\n With this in mind, they have expanded their \u201cplayer footprint\u201d from 40 to more than 100 competitions and are now grading players on multiple \u201csub-metric levels\u201d, including, for example, finishing with headers from set pieces, which would explain all the big lads.<\/p>\n Has it worked? Hell, yes.<\/p>\n \u201cSeverely compromised\u201d by the EFL\u2019s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) last season, the club was forced to sell \u00a3120million worth of talent, including Archie Gray<\/a> and Georginio Rutter<\/a>, replacing them with \u00a327m of new players. They still finished first.<\/p>\n Investment opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n Having set out its case for being nice people to do business with, 49ers Enterprises moves on to the important bit: how much money everyone will make.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the end of our three-year business plan, our objective is to increase Leeds\u2019 year-end 2028-29 revenue to \u00a3300m+,\u201d a slide says, before explaining that clubs with annual revenues of that magnitude historically trade at a revenue multiple of 3x-to-4x. In other words, stick with us because we are going to be worth more than \u00a31billion in four years.<\/p>\n To prove that point, the slide has a graph showing the valuations for 12 teams from last season\u2019s Premier League in one column, with their annual revenues in another column. And alongside these columns is a number for each club that represents the multiple used to get from the revenue to the value column, with Chelsea at one end of the graph (an 8.5x multiple) and Bournemouth at the other (1.0x).<\/p>\n The average multiple<\/a> for \u201cmid-to-low-tier clubs\u201d is 2.2x, which is where 49ers Enterprises believes Leeds should be, thanks to their \u201crich history, strong commercial revenue and recent promotion\u201d \u2014 a claim that is hard to argue with\u2026 providing Leeds stay up.<\/p>\n To emphasise this point, there is another slide that looks at seven recent transactions involving clubs in their peer group: the full or partial takeovers at Everton, Crystal Palace, West Ham United, Newcastle United, Bournemouth, Burnley and Ipswich Town, which were valued in a range from one to three and a half times their annual revenues.<\/p>\n We then get a couple of slides that work backwards from the amounts of money Leeds\u2019 owners have already invested, plus the club\u2019s debts, to show what the club\u2019s total enterprise value was in 2023, when they bought out Andrea Radrizzani, and now, after the \u00a3120million capital raise is factored in. These fancy bits of accountancy show that Leeds\u2019 enterprise value (equity plus net debt) was \u00a3565.45million in 2023 but is now \u00a3647.45million.<\/p>\n If you are thinking, \u201cHold on, that is only \u00a382million more, despite \u00a3120m going in\u201d, well spotted. But there is an explanation.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our 2023 deal, we had a fully funded and executed deal to take over the club,\u201d the deck says. \u201cThat deal included \u00a3257m in existing player obligations locked in (for) players who ultimately would get relegated and void our deal. Now, these obligations have been reduced to \u00a3140m and are tied to a refreshed squad built for promotion, featuring a young core with significant upside.\u201d<\/p>\n The real point here is that the \u00a3120million will be spent on new players and home improvements, not old commitments.<\/p>\n And to underline how far Leeds and the 49ers have come since 2023, the next slides list all the improvements made under American owners: more data, better contracts, a younger team, transfer profits, proven leaders, the Red Bull deal and a projected 25 per cent increase in annual revenue since the 2022-23 campaign.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For the accountants out there, the owners believe Leeds will bring in \u00a3262million this season, which would have been good enough for 19th place in the 2025 edition of Deloitte\u2019s Money League<\/a>, just below Aston Villa but ahead of the second- and third-richest clubs in France (Marseille and Lyon).<\/p>\n This section of the deck ends with another graph of \u201ccomparable transactions\u201d and the claim \u201cif you apply the average revenue multiple of 2.2x that recent low- and mid-tier EPL clubs were sold for to Leeds\u2019 projected revenue for 25-26, Leeds would be valued at \u00a3576million\u201d.<\/p>\n Growth strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n Every investment desk The Athletic has ever seen has a slide about \u201cstrategic pillars\u201d, and this one has three that can be paraphrased as such: start acting like a Premier League club, stabilise, and become self-sufficient.<\/p>\n In the first pillar, we have all the investment in data and scouts, increasing the academy\u2019s budget to help with player retention (by helping parents with travel expenses, for example) and establishing a \u201cnew inner-city academy to reach a demographic with high potential\u201d.<\/p>\n That last idea is particularly interesting. Leeds have a good record in player development, but it could be even better if they had a training base closer to Leeds than Thorp Arch, 15 miles from the city centre.<\/p>\n Becoming a stable Premier League club will be achieved by growing the club\u2019s revenues, via summer tours abroad and \u201ccurated retail launches\u201d, making sure Thorp Arch is still fit for purpose, leaning into the multi-club links with Rangers, the 49ers\u2019 new joint venture<\/a>, and the rest of the Red Bull network, and, most importantly, the redevelopment of Elland Road.<\/p>\n If the club can do that, make some money from the \u201cancillary real estate\u201d around the ground and \u201cconsistently monetise home-grown talent\u201d, Leeds will become self-financing and the owners can \u201cengage in conversations with potential bidders to maximise enterprise value upon exit\u201d.<\/p>\n If that comes as a shock, it shouldn\u2019t. These guys are not doing this to give something back to the city that raised them or to get as close as they can to childhood dreams of being the next Peter Lorimer. No, they expect a return on investment. Private equity firms usually wait about seven years \u2014 which could mean an exit around 2030, although there is no reference to this in the deck or by 49ers Enterprises.<\/p>\n We then get six slides that flesh out the strategy.<\/p>\n One is about making Leeds \u201cthe club of choice for Gen Z\u201d, the cohort born between the late 1990s and early 2010s \u2014 those who grew up with social media. The club have more than six million followers across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube, up 43 per cent since 2023.<\/p>\n Another is on the scouting network. At present, Leeds only have scouts on the ground in England and eight European countries, its \u201cprimary markets\u201d. The rest of Europe, including Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia, is a \u201csecondary market\u201d, while the Americas and Far East are \u201cscreening markets\u201d. However, \u201cas we acquire more clubs, secondary and screening markets (where we periodically conduct surveillance) will become primary markets\u201d.<\/p>\n The slide on the academy development plans is the most revealing in terms of new information, as it outlines the club\u2019s three-pronged approach: replenish, retain and sustain.<\/p>\n The replenishing will be done via a \u00a3500,000 annual budget for \u201cfilling gaps in the academy pathway\u201d with talented youngsters from local rivals, plus an additional \u00a3100,000-a-year scouting budget to find them.<\/p>\n Retainment will be improved by spending \u00a33million on Thorp Arch and ring-fencing \u00a3250,000 per year for expenses. And a new \u00a32million inner-city facility will help sustain and \u201cpotentially increase\u201d the club\u2019s current output of one \u201chigh-value academy product every two years\u201d.<\/p>\n Just to underline why that is a sound investment, there is a table that shows if Leeds can sell an academy player for \u00a322million \u2014 half the amount they got for Gray last year \u2014 it will cover the cost of four years\u2019 worth of enhanced academy expenditure and leave a profit of \u00a313.6million.<\/p>\n Archie Gray\u2019s sale to Tottenham enhanced Leeds\u2019 academy spending (George Wood\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n The club\u2019s plans to develop Elland Road<\/a> in two phases \u2014 West and South Stands first, North Stand second \u2014 have been well publicised. But in case you missed it, phase one will take Elland Road\u2019s capacity from 38,000 to 47,000, with \u00a37.6million already assigned for design and planning permission costs, and construction scheduled to start next year. All being well, the expanded West and South Stands will be ready for fans in August 2028.<\/p>\n No date is given for phase two\u2019s start or completion, but it is meant to take the ground\u2019s capacity to 53,000, which would put it among English football\u2019s top 10 in terms of size, adding \u00a330million in \u201cincremental annual revenue\u201d to the club\u2019s turnover. And if you assume that the Premier League is going to settle on a squad-cost ratio of 85 per cent<\/a> when it gets around to replacing its PSR, that is an extra \u00a325million a year to spend on players.<\/p>\n This section finishes with two graphs showing how Brighton and Brentford have used data and player-trading to \u201cconsistently operate profitably\u2026 we aim to use a similar approach\u201d, although Leeds think they can get there even quicker, thanks to their greater commercial revenue and larger fanbase.<\/p>\n Financials<\/strong><\/p>\n The final chapter comprises four slides: \u201cbase case\u201d and \u201clow case\u201d scenarios for cash flow and player spend.<\/p>\n If we tackle the \u201cbase case\u201d first, as mentioned, Leeds earned \u00a3141million in the Championship last season and are forecast to make \u00a3262m this season, rising to \u00a3271m next season and \u00a3273m in 2027-28, but only if they stay up.<\/p>\n The club\u2019s costs last season were \u00a3174million, which should rise to \u00a3214m this season, \u00a3200m next season and \u00a3215m the season after \u2014 that\u2019s pretty disciplined.<\/p>\n The net transfer spend last season was \u00a313million, with an estimate of \u00a352m for this season, then \u00a356m and then \u00a368m \u2014 so, the plan is to spend increasing amounts to cement the club\u2019s Premier League status. And if you add up the annual cashflows for these four seasons, you get a deficit of \u00a3118,919,000. In other words, the \u00a3120m this deck successfully brought in.<\/p>\n The notes for these numbers point out that ticket prices will rise after promotion, \u201ca conservative 16th-place finish is projected\u201d for this season, followed by back-to-back 15th-place finishes, and the wage bill will remain \u201cnear the average for 10th- to 15th-place clubs\u201d. They also estimate that the new Independent Football Regulator<\/a> (IFR) will cost Leeds \u00a35million.<\/p>\n There is also a reference to the fact that the average Premier League manager\u2019s tenure is 18 months \u2014 and therefore \u201ccontingencies are in place for periodic new hires\u201d.<\/p>\n The base-case player spend is mapped out in surprising detail, with amounts given for each position. For example, Leeds projected to spend \u00a3101million on players this season, comprised of \u00a325m on a striker and \u00a316m on a centre-back, all the way down to \u00a33m on a young goalkeeper and \u00a3200,000 for agent fees on a veteran loan midfielder.<\/p>\n There are also totals for the next two seasons \u2014 \u00a3126million and \u00a389m \u2014 but no position-by-position breakdowns.<\/p>\n Even more surprisingly, Leeds got very close to hitting these estimated transfer fees this summer. According to Transfermarkt, the club spent just under \u00a3100million, spending a little more than intended on midfielders and not enough on strikers<\/a>.<\/p>\n The low case projections are based on a 17th-place finish this season, the fact that struggling teams rotate coaches more often, including \u201cone or more managerial changes per year\u201d, and the IFR costing \u00a310million. If these calamities unfold, the revenue projections, total costs and net transfer balances will be a little lower, too, with the cumulative cashflow balance being higher, at \u00a3161million by the summer of 2028. No pressure, then, Daniel. Or David Kogan<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Top photo: Paraag Marathe, chairman of Leeds United and 49ers Enterprises; Ian MacNicol\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My wife has a theory that I only pretended to watch American teen drama The OC when we…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[18755,221,62,222,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-216262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-leeds-united","9":"tag-soccer","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-sports-business","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115181625283382201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2179837700-1-scaled.jpg\")
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