By David Owen
June 7 – Spain’s La Liga may overhaul the Bundesliga as the second-highest revenue-generating football league by the season after next, as the long-awaited switch to a collective sales model for TV rights provides a substantial boost to broadcasting income.
According to professional services firm Deloitte, the hope is that the move “will generate at least €1 billion per season from the sale of league broadcast rights, a c.40% increase on the value of current deals”. It should also reduce the Spanish league’s acute polarisation.
Said Deloitte: “The collective sale of broadcast rights will ensure a more equal distribution of broadcast revenues between clubs, bringing the ratio between the highest- and lowest-earning La Liga clubs, 7.4:1 in the 2013-14 season, to at most 4.5:1. This ratio will be progressively reduced should the value of rights exceed €1 billion, potentially to as little as 3.5:1. For comparison, in 2013-14 the ratio for Serie A [Italy] was 5.3:1, Ligue 1 [France] 3.4:1, Bundesliga [Germany] 2:1 and 1.6:1 for the Premier League [England].”
As explained in Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, “in May 2015, the Spanish Ministry of Sport announced by Royal Decree that from 2016-17, the rights to Spanish domestic football will be sold on a collective basis”. The decree states that “of the revenue generated from the sale of league broadcast rights, 90% will be distributed to La Liga clubs, of which 50% will be shared equally, 25% split based on sporting performance in the last five years and 25% based on a club’s social standing, calculated using factors including matchday attendance”.
The issue remains intensely divisive in Spain, however, with the national court last month blocking a proposed strike, called by the AFE players’ union aligned with the Royal Spanish Football Federation, that would have thrown the end of the season into chaos.
For now, the financial chasm between Spain’s ‘Big Two’, Champions League finalists Barcelona and Real Madrid, and other Spanish clubs remains enormous. According to Deloitte, Real and Barça represented “over 50% of the aggregate league revenue of €1.93 billion…
“Average total revenue for Barcelona and Real Madrid exceeded €500 million”, Deloitte went on, “compared to €170 million for Atlético [Madrid] and on average just €43 million for the other 17 clubs.
“Whilst 14 Premier League clubs appear in the world’s top 30 by revenue, Spain has just three representatives.”
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