GM Invests $600 Million in English Soccer Team

Wow! just Wow!! Glad GM is spending so wisely. Will this new investment help to raise sales figures in the US. NOT. The team is Manchester United.

Yes, General Motors really is giving $600 million to an English soccer club. Actually, as the team involved, Manchester United, is the most valuable team in sports, an investment in the club wouldn't be a bad idea, considering how everything else is going at General Motors. No, the $600 million GM is giving to Man United over the next 7 years is a sponsorship deal. In return, Man United will wear "Chevrolet" on their jerseys and GM will be able to call itself Man United's "global automobile partner." It will immediately have the edge with all those consumers who look to their favorite soccer club for car buying advice.

There is a very good reason government shouldn't bailout failing companies with buckets of taxpayer money. The money simply allows them to keep on making the disastrous decisions that got them to be a failing company in the first place. At least straight-up bankruptcy would have probably rooted out the kind of people who would think spending $60-70 million a year to have your logo on a soccer jersey was a swell idea.

MU's previous sponsor spent $30 million a year and GM wants to Trump them by doubling the sponsorship. WTH!!

www.breitbart.com...

To see Man Utd running around the pitch next season wearing shirts with Chevrolet upon them I find totally ridiculous.........Then young kids will ask their parents to buy them a new strip and they also run around with the word Chevrolet springing from their chests.........Most of the kids in the UK have never heard of Chevrolet, most of them haven't even been to the States...........but saying that, the amount of kids in the whole world today who wear Man Utd shirts is unreal................I was in a small village in Sri Lanka a couple of years ago.....there was hardly any running water, not much food around, but there were three young kids running around with a Man Utd shirts....advertising is unreal today, just look at how many people have bought LA Galaxy shirts just because David Beckham is playing for them.....would LA Galaxy have sold any shirts in the world apart from the USA if Beckham was not playing for them...........I DON'T THINK SO...........

Least the money will be coming back to the USA via the Glazer family so it can pay off some of the debts it owes on US properties like malls etc and its baseball team

And now they're listing Man U on the American stock market they'll be able to make another slab to spend in the USA while asking Giggs and Scholes to play till they're 50 at this rate

It didn't do AIG much good being United's sponsor a few years ago. When they went bust they pulled the deal.

There is a very good reason government shouldn't bailout failing companies with buckets of taxpayer money.

The term moral hazard comes to mind.

I say a bailout is in order !!!


Bravo GM !!!

As far as advertising goes this seems like a better deal for GM than a superbowl add. Soccer is a very popular sport around the world and MU is certianly a premiere team. I think you may be suprised that this could be a big win for GM globally. There's certianly no television presence that advertising on would give GM this kind of global exposure.

I didn't know GB/Europe drove Chevys!? Aren't they too big for their roads? Nothing is a shock anymore. Millions and billions thrown around like confetti. Sure sign of death throes of many nations.

reply to post by SunnyDee


They do some nice little cars that suit our windy roads so they know their market and at under £8.5k for the smallest are not too bad value for the little city runabout

reply to post by Maxatoria


What are those models called? What is their gas mileage? Are they like a mini-cooper?

Just curious if they are selling you guys a better, more gas saving model than we get over here? I wouldn't doubt it.

reply to post by jibeho


..and they were just talking about GM getting another bailout on the news!
here the story:
blogs.cars.com...
Wish I could run around spending hundreds of millions so i can keep getting bail outs for doing so! What the # is going on in this country?

It gets stranger...

Soros just bought 7.9% of Manchester United after dumping his bank shares, buying Facebook Stock, and buying gold.

Remember the AIG sponsorhip of MU?? They still owe us $50 billion.

What Gives??

Billionaire investor George Soros is known for having broken the bank of England. Now, he’s betting on the UK’s largest soccer team, Manchester United, unveiling a big stake in the traditional football club after the bell on Monday.

Soros revealed a 7.85% stake in the football club, which translates to about 3.1 million class A ordinary shares, in an SEC filing. The billionaire investor bought the stocks through his investment firm, Soros Fund Management, and will hold them in the Quantum Fund.

Despite a history rich of success on the pitch, Manchester United has performed poorly as a stock since going public ten days ago. In a widely anticipated, and discussed, IPO, the mythical club sold 16.6 million Class A shares at $14 a piece, raising about $233 million before fees, as my colleague Chris Smith reported.

The investment is a surprising bet for a savvy market player like Soros. Shares in Manchester United pay no dividend and essentially carry no voting power.

Odd trend for Soros and GM.

Is it synchronicity?... Soros, GM and AIG