“In the realm of European professional football, five leagues stand tall as economic superior. These leagues, namely the English Premier League, La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy, the Bundesliga in Germany, and Ligue 1 in France, collectively represent a colossal portion of the global football ecosystem. Their allure extends beyond the pitch, as they command vast sums of revenue from diverse sources, including broadcasting deals, sponsorship agreements, and matchday experiences.”
But what are the numbers? And how do the big leagues impact each other?
First, we want to show you an overall insight into the Big Five leagues and their income for the last five years.
As probably predicted, the Premier League is the big winner in this table, but how come?
One of the reasons for the Premier League’s wealth is the highest TV rights. The Premier League earns a total of 5.1 billion Pounds, which is €5,91 billion a season on TV rights. This is more than double the Serie A and La Liga, the second and third place. This large amount of money is split between the 20 participating clubs by 50% equally, 25% facility fees and 25% merit payments. All the international broadcasting money is split equally between the 20 clubs. This information is confirmed by theatletic.com.
Large companies in all five leagues want to invest in sponsorship deals. Again, the Premier League is in the lead with €1.17 billion out of 440 endorsements. Following closely behind is the Bundesliga, securing the second spot with 617 deals that yield €748,49 million. Meanwhile, La Liga secured the third position, amassing €691,20 million per season from various sponsorships. This underscores the competitive landscape for clubs outside the realm of Barcelona and Real Madrid, despite the presence of the two largest clubs globally in the league.
Predictably, Serie A occupies the fourth place, boasting a total of €447,58 million in sponsorship deals for the Italian league. However, this figure surpasses the sponsorship earnings of Ligue 1, the top-tier French football league, which generates €364,50 million annually.
Prizes differ on age, seat in the stadium, importance, and the home playing team. But research of Statista shows that the average highest prizes in Europe are the following:
The highest teams of these five leagues compete yearly, with other European competitions, for big prize awards in international tournaments. But how much are these awards worth?
The performance of the big five leagues is based on the achievements in the Champions League. Due to the significant increase in the prize fund when a team wins in the round of sixteen, all the teams that reached the quarter-final and received the prize money will be looked at. The table below shows that the Premier League 13, La Liga 8, Serie A 5, Bundesliga 6, and Ligue 1-3 were reached.
As this blog has shown, big money numbers are going around in football. The Premier League is the wealthiest overall, La Liga is second, Serie A third, Bundesliga fourth, and the Ligue 1 is fifth. The results in the Champions League are the same order except for the switch between the Serie A and the Bundesliga.
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