Management and Organizational Behavior
May 1st, 2012
The Barcelona Boom The country of Spain is facing a tough financial crisis in current times. However, that is not stopping the biggest soccer club in the world from generating sky high revenues. Soccer club FC Barcelona is one of the most successful soccer clubs in history. They have a fan base the same size if not bigger than most NFL teams in the United States. The fan base of Barcelona is considered a society of its own, especially with their 100,000 seat stadium. The club has an outstanding winning record with four of the last six Spanish titles; three champions league titles, two FIFA world cups, one Copa del Ray, and five Supercopas. With these championships under their belt Barcelona sits comfortably in third place of the world’s soccer club valuations at $1.31 billion. This is huge considering the crisis their country is facing. However, the team must continue to increase revenue to stay competitive and kept the 177,246 shareholders happy. These shareholders elect top management for victory at any cost but disagree with the ideas of ads on jerseys. Spain went on quite the borrowing spree in the past decade in which many of the soccer clubs did too. They took out loans backed by estate properties and spent a lot of their money on players from different parts of the world. With zero debt in 1995, Barcelona plummeted into debt sitting at $612 Million in 2010. The debt has stabilized now and the club is finally getting back on track financially. That is, as long as they can keep winning and maintain growing revenues. They have taken extensive financial strategies to shrink the debt. They have taken care of