Manchester United's glory days on the stock market are behind it For the nine months to March 31, it generated revenue from commercial sales and sponsorship of £89.5m, up from £76.7m last year, and £76.4m from broadcasting (£73.4m). These remain reasonably stable. Broadcasting will continue to grow given the recent £3bn plus three year deal struck by the Premier League with BSkyB and BT. Match day revenue, however, fell in the period from £81.6m to £80m and is obviously limited by seating capacity at Old Trafford, number of matches played and ticket prices. Between the 2005-06 and 2011-12 seasons, average admission prices for the club's Premier League matches have risen 5.8pc a year. Total revenue rose 6pc to £246m. So overall, some good, stable growth but not spectacular, weighed down by player wages of £112.4m growing at a rate of 10pc with total expenses of £203m growing at 9.4pc. Operationally the company is keeping its head above water, delivering an operating profit of £50.7m for the first nine months. A favoured stockmarket metric is earnings before a bunch of costs including interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) and in its last full year results this came to £110m. But what multiple the US market will apply to those earnings is anybody's guess, given how unusual Man Utd is as a quoted company. It's also unlikely to be widely followed by Wall Street analysts. Back in 2000, its £1bn value was to a large part attributed to its promise as a new media stock, particularly its online potential. That has failed to materialise. New media and mobile revenue is growing fast but amounted to just £17.2m in 2011. MUTV, the club's in-house television channel, generated £8.7m of sales. But while the company's growth is likely to be steady not spectacular, it won't pay a dividend either. Another reason why its value will be held back is its share structure of A and B shares - one reason it would probably get the thumbs down from a London float. B shares, owned by the Glazers, will have 10 votes per share while A shares have just one vote. Ultimately the float seems to be an attempt by the Glazers to raise some cash to pay down its £423.2m of debt - hardly an appealing prospect for investors. While Man Utd may continue as a force on the pitch, its glory days as a stock market darling appear behind it.