I agree with all this, all of it. I would, however, add one thing to the mix, in a mature business there is a direct correlation between performance in the market place and revenue stream, so if you're peddling analogue shit in a digital world then pretty soon just how crap your product line is will be exposed in your sales figures. But that's not always the case with an established football club. Liverpool are commercially very strong, with healthy revenue streams, so are Arsenal and to a lesser extent Spurs, yet where are the trophies (FA Cup notwithstanding) where are the League titles? United, despite five years in the (relative) wilderness still make money hand over fist.
I seem to remember Woodward not too long ago highlighting Liverpool's healthy revenue streams, despite never having won the Premiership, what he was saying and perhaps Arsenal is the best example of this rather than Liverpool, is that in football it is possible to grow your revenue stream without necessarily performing particularly well on the field. In a nutshell, you don't need to be "There or thereabouts" you just need to be "thereabouts" and the additional investment to get "There" (the league title, win the Champions League) cannot be justified commercially, as the additional investment required to achieve these things are not commensurate with the additional revenues that would be generated by achieving them.
In other words profit maximisation in football for the established clubs comes from being close but no cigar, because smoking the cigar is not worth the expense.
