West Ham have been ranked 16th in the 10th edition of Football Benchmark’s Football Clubs’ Valuation: The European Elite, where they evaluate and rank the 32 most prominent football clubs in Europe by their enterprise value (EV).
Selection Criteria
Besides the availability of annual financial statements of the clubs, Football Benchmark set three parameters to be fulfilled in order for a club to be included in their research. The two primary criteria that have to be simultaneously fulfilled are:
Clubs must be among the top 50 European teams by total operating revenues; West Ham is ranked 16th with the last published turnover of £267m in 2024
And clubs must be among the top 50 teams according to the 5-year UEFA coefficient, West Ham are ranked 29th with 69 points.
Formula
They use the Multiple approach, a method that measures the value of a company relative to the revenues that it generates. This methodology is suitable and often applied for establishing
an indicative value of football clubs for three main reasons:
• Revenue figures are quite easy to access and compare, as they are less distorted by accounting adjustments;
• Unlike earnings, which can be negative for many clubs, revenue multiples can also be applied to the most troubled clubs;
• Revenues are not as volatile as earnings.
Revenue figures are then multiplied by a multiplier derived from observations of similar clubs which are publicly listed (Comparable Companies Methodology) and acquisitions of
similar companies (Comparable Transactions Methodology).
Second, it does not fully reflect a club’s asset position. What Football Benchmark professionals have developed is a proprietary algorithm that, starting from the premises of the
Revenue Multiple used in corporate finance valuations, seeks to reduce risks and shortcomings inherent in the methodology and provides an indication of the EV of the
most prominent European football clubs as at 1 January 2025 on the basis of a review of the financial statements of the 2022/23 and 2023/24 football seasons.
In the simplest application of the Revenue Multiple method, once the multiplier is determined, it is uniformly applied to all clubs in the analysis. However, this overly simplistic
approach is unsuitable for taking into account differences between football clubs in terms of the markets in which they operate, their broadcasting revenue sharing methods,
operational efficiency and level of profitability, potential to succeed on-pitch at national and international level, etc.
Therefore, in order to reflect club-specific characteristics that influence clubs’ EV, the proprietary formula takes into account five parameters—each with their own specific weight—so that the applied revenue multiplier varies from club to club. Hereafter, they list the five key metrics which express differences between clubs, the markets and the economies in which they operate. These parameters, which bear different levels of significance and therefore a different weight in their formula, are the most important factors that can influence the EV of a club.
The Enterprise Value of a company is calculated as the sum of the market value of the owners’ equity, plus total debt, less cash and cash equivalents. It indicates what the business is worth regardless of the capital structure used to finance its operations.
West Ham Valuation
The chart suggests West Ham is now valued between €1.128 billion (£950m) and € 1.236 billion (£1.04bn), with an average of €1.182 billion (£1 billion), which is the same valuation the Gold family have reportedly put on their shares.
The full report can be read at football-benchmark-the-european-elite-2025
Good job it wasn’t entertainment.