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Sports Team Mania Spreads From Megadeals to £1 Yeovil Town

Even the fifth tier of the English football league system is attracting bidders.

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By David Hellier

April 18, 2023 at 9:00 AM UTC

Updated on

April 18, 2023 at 1:06 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the April 28, 2023 issue of Markets.

Matt Uggla, a longtime supporter of English Premier League team Arsenal FC, wanted to own a football club. The 29-year-old had tried to buy a couple, but the deals fell apart. Then a friend suggested Yeovil Town FC.

Yeovil, based in Somerset, in the southwest of England, is in the fifth tier of the country’s football pyramid—the bottom segment of the nationwide leagues. The club attracts little attention. It expects to make media revenue of just £14,539 ($18,115) in the current season—little more than half of its catering budget. But the price was right: Uggla agreed to buy the team for £1 in March.