If you go online, you’ll find a lot of news about football clubs, predictions and speculations that surround them.
There are many sports journalists trying to uncover transfers before they happen, and report on how much a certain transfer cost. However, not many people are reporting on the business side of things, especially the broadcasting, which is typically the biggest source of revenue for football clubs.
Broadcasting is also important, because it is what allows hundreds of millions of fans from around the world to keep up with the news of their team and cheer for them. In this article, we want to discuss the broadcasting income of European clubs. In particular, we will focus on the five biggest leagues in Europe: Premier League of England, League 1 of France, Bundesliga of Germany, La Liga of Spain, and Serie A of Italy.
The clubs competing in the top tier championships of five large European nations earn a significant amount of money. Some of them, like Manchester United of the Premier League, are valued in the billions.
Still, there are differences within the five championships. It should not be surprising that the broadcasters are willing to pay a significant premium for the rights to stream Premier League. It is the most competitive and interesting league of them all. Even the clubs on the lower end of the Premier League make significantly more than their counterparts in other countries. For instance, a club that finishes in last place of the Premier League might end up earning more money than a champions league contender from France’s Ligue 1.
There are also differences in terms of top and lowest earners in each of these Leagues. In the case of Spain, the clubs with the most points take most of the broadcasting revenue, and the differences are staggering. The English Football Association operates by different principles. In the Premier League, the clubs get more or less the same broadcasting revenue, regardless of where they finish in the table.
The winners of the Premier League are entitled to about twice as much broadcasting income as the team that takes last place. In comparison, the Spanish champions take almost six times as much money as the last place contestants. Surprisingly, there is even more inequality between winners and losers in Serie A, where the team that finishes 1st takes as much as 10X the revenue of the club in last place.
The English approach ultimately serves the purpose of making the championship even more competitive. Small clubs heavily rely on broadcasting income (as well as the tickets sold to local fans), because, unlike bigger clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United, they don’t have an international fan base who could buy the merchandise.
Also, smaller clubs that don’t compete on the European stage earn less money from sponsorship deals.
Considering all of this, it becomes clear why small clubs have to depend on broadcasting revenues to function properly.
The story of Premier League
This top-tier English competition was created to generate more revenues for the most dominant English clubs at the time. Since its inception, the number of viewers interested in watching the Premier League have increased.
Also, the emergence of the internet created the opportunity for online streaming. Recently, Amazon Prime announced that it would stream Premier League matches for the holiday seasons. With every passing year, the Premier League is attracting more and more viewers from all around the world. Soccer is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Many viewers in the US watch Major League Soccer, a domestic league in the US, but many of them also root for teams across the pond.
Overall, all of these factors have contributed to unparalleled growth in the broadcasting revenue for the teams of the Premier League.
The English clubs in the Premier League agreed to sell the broadcasting rights collectively. This gave them a superior bargaining position, and the opportunity to demand more money for broadcasting rights. Other European championships followed suit, but much later. Spanish La Liga did so in 2015, and Bundesliga did it only a few years ago. European championships are also starting to prioritize small clubs. This is bound to have a positive fact on the competitiveness of these leagues, thus making them more interesting to watch.
However, other European Championships have a long way to go before they can match the viewership of the Premier League. This is mostly due to the fact that the Premier League is in English, an international language.
Also, the Premier League has a large number of football teams known and recognized in every corner of the world. Spanish La Liga also has two, Barcelona and Real Madrid (three if you count Atletico Madrid). There is a similar situation in Italy and Germany. France technically has just one team with international fans, Paris-Saint Germain. Although the transfer of one of the world’s best players, Messi, is certainly going to put Paris Saint Germain in the center of spotlight. If you like to bet on sporting events, you might also be interested in casino games. If that’s the case, you should have a lot of fun at PlayAmo casino after checking out this site https://www.playamo.com.
However, all European championships still generate billions in broadcasting rights for teams competing in them.
Normally, these contracts are sold in 4-year periods to ensure the stability of revenues. Typically most of the broadcasting rights are bought by international media corporations, such as: Sky Sports and BT Sports in England. Although, recently the domination of these two streaming players has been broken by Amazon, who purchased the rights to stream Premier League matches over the holiday.
Spanish broadcasting rights are also sold in multiple year batches, normally three or four year periods that are worth roughly 3-4 billion dollars. Just like other European championships, the value of La Liga broadcasts is increasing as well. The most recent auction of broadcasting rights showed an increase of nearly 30%.
Summary
In this article, we discussed the importance of broadcasting revenue for small and big clubs. We also compared the five major championships in Europe, and discussed the reasons for the commercial success of the Premier League. Ultimately, it’s clear that football is becoming more and more efficiently monetized, which is good news for club owners and for the football fans. More income for the clubs means more material incentives for the players to show off their class on the pitch.
