March 3, 2010

• <Deloitte’s Football Money League 2010>

  Soccer fans are strongly encourage to take a look on this interesting report. Click here for the homepage. You can also download the full reports (this year and in previous years) for free by simple registration.

  Regarding the impact of financial tsunami : UK, Spain and Italy are hardly hit by the crisis (e.g. Spain is the S in the PIGS – Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain).  Interestingly, these are the countries where the traditional top soccer teams locate (Manchester United, Chelsea in UK; Read Madrid, Barce in Spain; AC or Inter-Milan in Italy).

  Surprisingly, there seems to be no apparent impact on revenue on the soccer teams. If you look at the report, non UK teams will report higher revenue. Meanwhile, revenue in euro terms for UK teams was either stagnant (e.g. Manchester United) or declining (e.g. Liverpool). But this is purely due to foreign exchange conversion – Pound dropped against Euro during the crisis, so when you translate UK team’s revenue (in Pound) into Euro, you get a lower number. 

  In other words, if you look at UK team’s revenue, Liverpool and Manchester’ revenue is indeed rising. But Chelsea’s still declined.

  In terms of capacity utilization (how much your stadium is filled), at the end of the report, there is an average 2% point drop for these 20 top soccer teams. Again, there seems to be no apparent negative impact.

  The report does not say whether these teams are making profit. The cost for running a team is very huge, particularly on the players’ payroll. This is why 12 NBA teams (out of a total of 30) were losing money last year. Interestingly, in NBA, teams taking huge revenue or making money are not necessary the better teams (except the Lakers). In the top 5 earning teams, Chicago Bulls, NY Knicks, Houston and Pistons are at best mediocre.

  Also read this excellent piece on NBA’s revenue shortfall from Bill Simmons.

  • 9:31 am
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