The English Premier League football clubs are once again the most profitable in the world, according to the Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance 2009.
The clubs’ returned a collective profit of €234 million, beating into second place the Bundesliga, whose clubs returned a €136 million profit, which had been the top earning league in 2006-07.
The Premier League clubs generated €2.4 billion of revenue in 2007-08 – a 26 per cent increase, spurred by the beginning of a new period of football rights deals. Deloitte predicts continued revenue growth for the league in 2009-10, although at a lower rate.
“It will, of course, be hard to maintain this pace in the immediate future. The new economic realities may lead to flat matchday revenues,” said Dan Jones, head of Deloitte’s Sport Business Group.
“While attendances continue to hold up well, many clubs have frozen or reduced ticket prices. However, the stepped increases in the current domestic broadcast deal and the new UEFA Champions League TV deal make it likely overall revenues will edge up.”
The total European football market was worth €14.6 billion in 2007-08, according to Deloitte. This represents a €1 billion increase on the previous season, driven by a €0.7 billion increase in revenues in the ‘big five’ European leagues – England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France – and the staging of Euro 2008.
Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga came joint second after the Premier League in revenue-generation, with €1.4 billion each. For La Liga it was an 8 per cent increase; for the Bundesliga it was a 4 per cent increase.
Serie A was the fastest growing league in revenue terms, although this was significantly boosted by the return of Juventus, following its demotion to Serie B two seasons ago for involvement in match-fixing. The Turin club contributed two-thirds of the €357 million (34 per cent) increase in league revenues.
The Deloitte report said it was encouraging for the future financial performance of the leagues that attendances across them grew by 2 per cent in the season, and that all five had seen major long-term broadcast deals renewed. But it warned, “The greatest challenge may come in maintaining commercial revenues and higher priced corporate hospitality ticketing, while also addressing wage and other cost inflation.”
