Although some sports have gained great momentum in recent years in some of the European markets and although new business models have appeared, such as eSports , football is the king sport as a business.
This type of sport has million-dollar audiences , fully dedicated fans who see their soccer teams as authentic lovemarks, which makes them feel faithful to their colors and connect emotionally with them. Likewise, companies are increasingly willing to pay to position themselves taking advantage of the rise of this sport.
The English league and the main European football teams have a lot to do with this assessment . In fact, the English Premier League is the most valuable of all European leagues. Its value is 72% higher than that of the next most valuable league, the German one (and that taking into account that the Bundesliga is the league with the best results in attendance at soccer matches). The five major European leagues, considered the 'bigfive', closed the last season analyzed (2017/18) with revenues of 15.6 billion euros, 6% more than the previous year.
However, for Deloitte this sport currently moves around $500 billion annually. This shows that teams have managed to find new forms of success and income, also generated by UEFA 's sustained efforts to increase their profitability and sustainability through Financial Fair Play and club licensing, as noted Dan Jones, partner and head of Sports Business at Deloitte.
There are multiple studies that have detailed the impact of football campaigns, the most famous players and the most successful teams. For example, a study indicated that Real Madrid was the most valuable team in the world when it comes to football. Its brand was worth 1,646 million dollars. They were followed by Manchester United , with 1,472 million and Barcelona, with 1,399 million, as the most sought-after teams.
In all the economic evaluations of football teams and the different national and international championships, not only the income from ticket sales is important, but also the value of their brand in marketing, the sale of players or the impact that have their derivative products such as, for example, merchandising.
In fact, the German Bundesliga surpasses the Spanish Football League in valuation (it is the second most valuable league, ahead of the Spanish one) thanks to better sales of match broadcasting rights. Even in the most valuable league in Europe, such as the English one, field tickets are an insignificant part of the income and brand value. They constitute only 14% of the season's income, while in the German league ticket sales reach 17% and the Spanish league 12%.
The most important percentage of income is in sponsorships/advertising and the rights to broadcast matches on television, which demonstrates the attractive power of the sports brand.
This business has overcome the barriers of Europe and South America to extend, apart from Africa, Asia and the rest of the American continent, to the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Australia , five emerging powers in this sport. Three of them (Australia, South Korea and Japan) will attend the world championship to be held in Russia, while the United States, after its elimination from the world championship, put Fox Sports at risk due to the 400 million dollars it paid for the tournaments. television rights for the World Cup, given the little interest that the audience in that country will foreseeably have after its elimination from the World Cup, and China - which now buys players at exorbitant prices - is betting on a State policy: organizing the 2026 World Cup .
Although the brands of soccer clubs are attractive, the players are even more so. Great figures of this sport such as Messi, Ronaldo Neymar Jr. , among others, earn a good part of the income through image rights and other channels, such as the advertising they do for large commercial brands. The income of these three athletes was almost 180 million euros in 2016. Today, they probably exceed 200 million euros.
On the other hand, football has also become “El Dorado” for betting houses , which have found in this sport the perfect vehicle to reach their target, while reinforcing their brand in terms of credibility by linking their image to that of the football clubs in the main international competitions, especially the European ones.
As 'Expansión' points out, the gaming industry has become the fifth sponsor of the English competition, behind sportswear brands, financial services companies, airlines and car manufacturers. Sponsorship revenue generated in one year exceeded 500 million euros, according to Business Insider . In the United Kingdom alone, the investment was more than 100 million and almost half of it went to the Premier. However, beyond the kits, the sponsorship of these online betting houses and casinos has also been extended to football teams without the need to wear their logo on the shirt, only in some areas of the stadium, website, application. club official or other locations for promotional purposes.
In the 18/19 season, the sponsorship of this type of organization has occurred in nineteen of the twenty clubs in the Santander League . The only team that deviated from this rule was Real Sociedad which, although it has never had a sponsorship of this type on its kit, did have it at the club level: Kirolbet, a Basque gambling operator that currently sponsors other sports clubs. .
Likewise, in leisure places where all types of bets can be made (as long as you are of legal age), soccer bets stand out above all, since the passion that exists in Spain with respect to this sport is different from that of other countries, and many fans do not hesitate to bet on their team. Bwin and 888sport , for example, are well-known Internet betting and gaming operators in this sector.
The rise of these businesses linked to football cannot be understood without strong investments in marketing, which have practically tripled between 2013 and 2018, where they went from 112 to 329 million euros, an increase proportional to the investment in advertising made by these companies.
Source images: The Economy Journal.
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