Event Synopsis: The Future of Sport Governance in Europe Conference

In January, Senior Vice President, Anton Garcia, spoke at the Concurrences 'Future of Sport Governance in Europe' hybrid conference in Brussels. Anton joined a panel focussing on the topic of levelling the playing field for all, within the context of how to organise a continental system of sport competitions. Read a summary of Anton's discussion points and access the full event synopsis below.

The European football revenues:

• As a comparison, European football revenues are in line with the revenue of the 3 largest U.S. sports leagues: the National Football League, the Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association.
• Revenues are generated by the 5 top national leagues and represent approximately 60 % of the revenues of European football.
• UEFA’s generated revenues are about €3.2 billion and of this about €2.3 billion is Champions League revenue.

The Super League in terms of revenues and format:

• It would generate more interest and more revenues than the existing European tournaments.
• They would be more selective in terms of the teams that play.
• It will include top teams that would play more matches against each other.
• There is more interest in terms of audience for games featuring top clubs.
• The revenues with the Super League need to be estimated:

- First, calculate how much revenue each tournament would generate;

- Then, these revenues should be distributed according to the sporting performance of the clubs participating in the tournament.

The broadcasting revenues:

• They represent around 50 % of revenues of clubs.

• They are more likely to change with this format change and the new direction of the Super League.

• The total revenues of each tournament are calculated using the strong relationship between a club's average fan base and broadcast revenues.
• The relationship is assessed based on the audience numbers for the Champions League.
• After considering this relationship and the one found with the Champions League, when the number of fans of a competition on Facebook increases by 1% on average, broadcast revenues increase by roughly 0.5%, or half of this percentage.
• Once these broadcast revenues have been established, the share of these revenues that each team receives depends on its sporting performance. For this purpose, a simulation of the matches is made.

On solidarity:

• It refers to the transfer of funds from the most successful clubs to less successful ones.
• UEFA measures this transfer at around €260 million. This is revenue from European tournaments organised by UEFA, excluding national teams.
• The income is for 1st division teams that do not participate in European tournaments or play in the qualifying rounds and do not reach the final round of European tournaments.
• Then, there is only about €30 million for youth football.
• The Super League would have the potential to more than match the solidarity that UEFA currently offers.

Read the full synthesis here (subscription required)

This synthesis was originally published by Concurrences and is available on their website (subscription required). The views expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily represent the views of Compass Lexecon, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, its employees, or clients.