Off the field, the English Premier League is a commercial
juggernaut with broadcasting deals worldwide fueling player transfers and wages
most others cannot match. It helps explain why some clubs created the Super
League project.
League riches helped English champion Manchester City make
the marquee summer signing. Erling Haaland’s arrival from Borussia Dortmund
cost City more than 100 million pounds ($122 million) in transfer and agent
fees.
While Haaland was a boyhood City fan whose father played
there, he was also lured to a competitive league that avoids the one-club
dominance recently seen in Germany, Italy and France.
On the field, five different teams have won the Premier
League in the past 10 seasons, including Leicester’s stunning 2016 title.
Though City has four of the past five titles, two were epic duels with
Liverpool.
The Champions League is also feeling Premier League power
with four different teams in the past four finals, including two all-English
games. Liverpool was in three of the past five finals while winning just one
Premier League title.
Those same four teams — City, Liverpool, Chelsea and
Tottenham — are England’s entry in the Champions League this season.
Manchester United and Arsenal qualified only for the
second-tier Europa League and are by far the wealthiest clubs in it.
Here’s a look at English financial dominance and the
challenge for other top leagues:
ENGLAND’S EARNING
Premier League broadcast rights earned 3.64 billion euros
($3.7 billion) last season with Spain’s La Liga next best at around 2 billion
euros ($2.04 billion), according to UEFA’s annual survey of European soccer.
“This is of course the best example in the world of how to
market a sports competition,” Jacco Swart, managing director of the 30-nation
European Leagues group, said in praise.
Evenly weighted cash distribution gave the worst Premier
League team, Norwich, 98 million pounds ($119 million) in prize money that beat
the entire budget for most European clubs.
English clubs took 10 of the top 18 places in the latest
Deloitte list of highest earners. Abu Dhabi-owned Man City led with 644.9
million euros ($657 million).
The total wage bill for 20 Premier League clubs was 2.88
billion euros ($2.93 billion) in 2020, according to UEFA – 1 billion euros
($1.02 billion) above La Liga, and more than Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s
Serie A combined.
SPAIN’S CHASING
La Liga skews prize money toward top clubs with the winner
taking about 160 million euros ($163 million), up to three times more than
other clubs.
It’s good for Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid —
who have won all the league titles since Valencia’s in 2004 — though not for
competitive balance.
“They do not have a very long tradition of selling (rights)
collectively,” Swart said.
Real Madrid’s response to tough times was winning yet
another Champions League by improbably ousting the top three English clubs and
Paris Saint-Germain.
Madrid and Barcelona have long raised their Champions League
earnings by using influence at the European Club Association — which they left
to launch the failed Super League — to steer prize money toward storied clubs.
Barcelona has eased its own financial crisis, fueled by
long-term overspending on wages, by trading future TV rights money for cash now
from an investment firm.
Signing FIFA player of the year Robert Lewandowski from
Bayern Munich was one result, though Barcelona’s reputation is being hit by
pressuring Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong to take a pay cut.
A Spanish success has been coach Unai Emery lifting, first,
Sevilla and now small-town Villarreal to overachieve and win a combined four
Europa League titles.
GERMANY’S CULTURE
The Bundesliga’s “50+1” ownership rule is widely liked for
protecting clubs’ identity and preventing takeovers by the oil-rich states,
oligarchs and billionaires lured to the Premier League.
Clubs controlling a majority of voting rights is embedded in
German culture, which also curbs ticket and pay-TV prices — a principled stand
which reduces revenue.
“What people are willing to pay to watch football in England
is totally different to what people are prepared to pay in Germany,” Swart
said.
The average season ticket price is 1,095 pounds ($1,325) at
Arsenal but some Dortmund fans can pay just 240 euros ($244).
Dortmund also excels signing and nurturing English
teenagers, then selling them back to the Premier League. Haaland’s former
teammate, Jadon Sancho, went to Man United for a four-fold profit and Jude
Bellingham is likely next.
ITALY’S DECLINE
After hosting the 1990 World Cup, Serie A was the rich,
glamor league. Decline followed the 1992 launches of the Premier League and Champions
League, and Italian stars started moving to Chelsea and even unfashionable
Middlesbrough.
Serie A clubs fell further back by playing in city-owned
stadiums -- some shared, with an athletics track, and dating fast -- they could
not exploit commercially.
Juventus opened its own stadium in 2011 and won nine
straight titles. Red tape has not helped stadium building plans in Rome, Milan
and elsewhere, frustrating a new wave of American club owners.
Chinese ownership at AC Milan and Inter Milan has been
complicated, though both ended a decade-long wait to win Serie A.
Italy’s favored bid to host the 2032 European Championship
can spark a needed stadium modernization program and play has improved on the
field.
Attack-minded teams Atalanta and Napoli helped Serie A shed
a reputation for negative play, which dulled global interest in paying for
broadcast rights.
FRANCE
Ligue 1 has mostly been owned by Paris Saint-Germain since
Qatar bought the club in 2011 months after being named the 2022 World Cup host.
Lyon and Marseille have not won titles since 2008 and 2010,
respectively, and both are now in American ownership.
Lyon’s new majority owner, John Textor, arrived in June
promising to spend to pursue PSG at home with European ambitions next.
Marseille has had turmoil in six years under former Los
Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, though is now back in the Champions
League.
Another foreign owner driving a renewed challenge at Nice is
Monaco-based British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who was often linked to bids
for Chelsea.
The overseas ownership model offers some stability after the
collapse two years ago of the league’s touted new broadcast deal.
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