Real Madrid has regained its status as the most profitable football club due to spectators

The new ranking of the most profitable football clubs in the world – Deloitte Money League – recorded an unexpected result. The most successful football club of the 2022/23 season, Manchester City, turned out to be only second, losing, or rather, returning the championship to Real Madrid. Paris Saint-Germain also made it into the top 3. In general, the new ranking reveals an alarming trend for the English Premier League (EPL). If in the previous report its representatives took eleven places in the top 20, then in the newest report they took only eight.

The traditional ranking of football club profitability, published annually by Deloitte, and this is the 27th edition, recorded a couple of unexpected indicators. Previous studies by Deloitte specialists have time and again demonstrated the unconditional superiority of Premier League clubs in terms of income (the Deloitte rating takes into account only the income of clubs, leaving their expenses out of the picture). A new study has shown that Real Madrid, which was dethroned by Manchester City a year ago, has returned to that same throne, pushing the Manchester team into second place.

The difference between the Spanish and English grandees is very small. Madrid earned €831.2 million during the season (€713.7 million in the 2021/22 season) versus €825.9 million (€731 million) from Manchester. In third place is PSG with €801.8 million (€654.2 million). A significant increase in income, almost €150 million, allowed the Parisians to rise from fifth place to third.

In fourth place is Barcelona (€800.1 million in the report for 2023 versus €632 million in 2022), in fifth place is Manchester United (€745.8 million / €688.6 million), in sixth — Bayern (€744 million / €653.6 million). Next, closing the top 10, are four more Premier League clubs: Liverpool (€682 million / €701 million), which of all the participants in the top 20 of last year’s ranking lost the largest number of positions and dropped from third place to seventh, Tottenham ( €631.5 million / €522.9 million), Chelsea (€589.4 million / €568.3 million) and Arsenal (€532.6 million / €433.5 million).

At first glance, despite Manchester City losing first place, the dominance of the Premier League clubs continues. There really are a majority of them in the top 10—six. But if you expand the scope of the study to the top 20 teams, a disturbing plot, and perhaps even a trend, emerges for English clubs.

A year ago, there were 11 Premier League teams in the top 20 of the Deloitte rankings. Now there are only eight of them left. “This shows that the Premier League cannot rest on its laurels,” said Tim Bridge, lead partner at Deloitte Sports Business Group. He also noted that the Premier League’s media rights revenues have “increased slightly and seem to have reached their limit.” Let us recall that last year the Premier League entered into a contract according to which it will receive £6.7 billion (€8.53 billion) from television companies over a four-year cycle, which starts in the 2025/26 season. The increase compared to the current cycle will be only 4%, that is, even below the inflation rate. At the same time, the Premier League had to discard all its remaining trump cards. The fact is that in the new cycle the vast majority of matches will be shown live.

Also worth noting is that commercial revenue (that is, everything excluding media rights and stadium revenue), according to the Deloitte report, is again coming to the fore for the first time since 2015. For the same Real Madrid, commercial income amounted to €403 million during the reporting period, compared to €306 million received through the sale of media rights. For Manchester City, the figures were €399 million and €344 million, respectively, for PSG – €400 million and €249 million.

An important factor that determined Real’s return to first place in the ranking was the actual popularity of the Spanish giants. As follows from the Deloitte report, revenues to the royal club’s box office due to fans visiting the stadium amounted to €122 million. This is a record figure for Real Madrid. By comparison, Manchester City’s attendance revenue was only €83 million. The report also notes that the growth in stadium revenue is once again becoming an important factor for clubs as the industry recovers from the effects of the pandemic. In total, matchday revenues (fan expenses for visiting the stadium) for the top 20 teams reached €1.9 billion. An excellent indicator, especially considering that during the pandemic stadiums were effectively closed and clubs received almost nothing from the implementation of ticket programs.

Alexander Petrov