Premier League became even more premiere

The latest ranking of the world’s most profitable clubs, the Deloitte Money League, recorded last season’s return of revenue generated by the top teams to pre-pandemic levels, as well as the increasing superiority of the English Premier League (EPL) over the rest of the big five championships in terms of commercial success. Manchester City retained the top spot in the classification, earning €731 million, and its top 20 were more than half made up of Premier League representatives.

Another rating published annually Deloitte, confirmed that the negative impact that the coronavirus pandemic had on leading European clubs was more short-term than long-term. It is based on last season’s results, which ended in the spring of 2022, and saw the top 20 clubs earn a total of €9.2bn. from the last season before the pandemic.

The return to the level of the end of the last decade was not difficult for Deloitte analysts to explain. It was in the previous season that coronavirus restrictions were finally lifted or substantially relaxed.

So there is nothing surprising in the fact that, compared to 2021, matchday revenues (they are directly related to the holding of matches and, above all, ticket sales) in the top 20 immediately jumped up by €111 million, while commercial revenues (they are generated in including events held at club stadiums) by as much as €300 million. In addition, the revenue structure has assumed a traditional form in 2022. At the height of the pandemic, matchday’s share of it was actually symbolic. Now it is again the usual 15%. Another 41% of giant clubs provided commercial income, 44% – income from media rights.

Topped the rankings for the second year in a row “Manchester city”. He earned €731m, €86m more than the season before last. But this is not the most curious trend recorded by the current release of the Deloitte Money League. The most curious of all is the one that relates to the English Premier League as a whole, its role and “specific weight” in European football.

The first twenty Money League turned out to be quite heterogeneous. In fact, some famous brands never reached the pre-pandemic level. Quite predictably, the Italian giants were included in the list – Juventus and “Inter” (€401 million and €308 million in revenues in 2022 versus €460 million and €365 million in 2019), and Turin even dropped out of the top ten this time. The fact is that in the season preceding the current one, severe restrictions continued to apply in Italy, including limits on filling stadiums.

The Spanish example is even more telling. “Real”like a year ago, is ranked second in the ranking, showing an increase of 11% compared to 2021, but compared to 2019, it missed €43 million. However, this is a trifle against the background of “losses” “Barcelona”. They – if we compare its income for the season that preceded the current one, with the income of the end of the past decade – amounted to as much as € 203 million. At the same time, Barcelona fell from fourth place in the Money League to seventh. True, it is necessary to take into account an important nuance. The period that is relevant for the published rating, in fact, was the peak of the recent crisis of the Catalan club, which also had a financial aspect. Meanwhile, Barcelona seems to be overcoming its consequences, and future estimates will also be influenced by the use of “economic leverage” that happened in the summer of 2022 in the form of the sale of 25% of domestic TV rights and 49.9% of Barca Licensing and Merchandising, which have already allowed a shock transfer campaign, and an effective partnership agreement with Spotify. But in any case, the Spanish case is indicative, especially against the background of the English one.

Money League has recorded a continuation of a long-obvious trend.

The English Premier League is becoming more and more separated from the rest in terms of sustainability and demand from fans and investors alike.

For the first time, more than half of the top 20 was formed from representatives of the Premier League: it includes 11 clubs from England. There are 16 of them in the top 30, in other words, 80% of all participants in the championship. And many – “Wolverhampton” and “Brighton”, Southampton and “Aston Villa” – do not even aim at a ticket to the Champions League, which guarantees significant income. They are quite satisfied with the chic local incomes, which stem mainly from expensive television contracts and enormous spectator interest in football. Moreover, an example “Leeds” illustrates how quickly the NPL enriches its members. Back in 2020, this team played in the second division by status, and now it flaunts in 18th place in the Money League, ahead, for example, of the Dutch Ajax and Portuguese “Benfica”.

Interviewed BBC experts have no doubt that British dominance will continue. And Sam Boer, director of Sports Business Group, part of Deloitte, predicting the future, said that, in his opinion, today, in discussions about whether it can happen that absolutely all 20 clubs in the Premier League will enter the top 30, the actual word is not “if” and “when”.

Alexey Dospekhov