Uefa general secretary, David Taylor, told a news conference on Friday that the majority of the revenue will come from television deals and sponsorship. The amount is about 50 per cent higher than that generated at Euro 2004 in Portugal.
Taylor said: "The sums from TV rights and sponsors are much bigger than the sums generated from ticketing. Considerable sums are now also being generated by corporate hospitality. We earn about €1.3 billion from this whole exercise”.
Taylor added that the operating costs of staging the event were about €600 million with another €450 million going to all 53 Uefa member associations to develop the game.
The European economy is also likely to receive a €1.4 billion boost according to sport business research group, StageUp. Austria and Switzerland alone are expected to receive €470 million from staging the event.
The European Championship has grown from a four-team finals staged between 1960 and 1976 to the third-largest sporting event in the world after the World Cup and Olympic Games. In total, 31 matches will be played at the tournament with the most profitable in the first stage likely to be in Group C, which contains World Champions Italy, World Cup runners-up France, the Netherlands and Romania.
