Man United face £777m race to boost transfer funds as Sir Jim Ratcliffe weighs up crunch decision

Manchester United's global reach has been in evidence again this week. A tour to the United States may be becoming commonplace for many, but the attention the game against Arsenal generated at the weekend shows the interest is still strong.

A crowd of 62,486 flocked to the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday night to watch what was a warm-up for the Premier League season, though in reality was little more than a glorified kickabout at a pace far below what will be expected when the real stuff gets underway.

Not that football is the main reason for the trip over the pond, of course. As Pep Guardiola explained about Man City's USA tour: "You just be here because the club needs to do it for commercial issues - and so we have to do it."

For so long there have been three pillars of revenue for football clubs: broadcast, matchday, and commercial. As the cost of running clubs becomes ever more challenging, with rising payrolls, bigger transfer fees and ever-changing financial controls to stop unsustainable spending, finding new ways to grow revenue has never been more important for clubs, and the US in particular offers a major chance to create a fourth pillar of revenue; finding the latent value in international fandom.

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Premier League football clubs have hundreds of millions of fans globally. But their fans have for so long been limited to watching the game on TV and buying a shirt. For clubs, the challenge is to make use of the smaller world that technology has created and find different ways to meaningfully engage fans in different countries that can help drive revenue.

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