@stickem
I am not sure if you are referring to revenue or pure profit as pure profit might be affected by high spending by the club. According to
this Forbes article Real Madrid pulls in about $761 in revenue (Manchester
seems similar.)
Something is out of the picture though. I know for a fact that Euro teams are followed by people (at least) in all of Europe, Africa, and Asia. No way Only USA clubs are generating similar revenue. Think of all the broadcasting rights, merchandise, etc etc.
My only explanation is what Sload Soap says. In USA there are only 32 NFL teams (less than 1 per state) meanwhile in England there are 8 divisions assuming 15 per division that would be 120 clubs for England alone. (numbers rough estimations). If we apply this to USA then we should have 120 clubs per state equaling 6,000 NFL teams!
(Why some states do not have NFL teams?)
@sload soap
Maybe in Europe but world wide there are still many public clubs even Real Madrid are public. I would consider German is public since majority is owned by the fans. Even if the clubs are private, they represent a specific region like Barcelona FC and AC Milan. I am not sure if this is the case with American teams which can change states and do not necessary represent any region or group of people. Its just a business corporation playing sports, why would I cheer for that. To make it see it from my perspective, I am not cheering for ATT basketball team vs McDonalds. I would cheer for New York Yankees if I was from New York (assuming they do not change state).
Cricket is popular in Pakistan and India, but facts are facts, they still draw second most number of viewers as a sport. Very surprising to me since its mostly concentrated in that region of the world.