ENGLISH football is now raking in more than £3BILLION a year. The Premier League earned almost £2.4bn of that total in 2011-12 to confirm its status as the richest club competition in the world. And when the new TV deals kick in next season, England’s top flight will have income of more than £3bn on its own. Alan Switzer, director of the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: “These are very impressive figures in this economic climate. “This is especially when you consider that, from next season, Premier League income from broadcasting alone will rise by £500m. “Despite the recession, we always thought sport, and football in particular, would be resilient. It means so much to people. Season tickets are among the last things people give up. “Football is also killer content for broadcasters and they have invested heavily in it.” According to Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, the 20 Premier League clubs earned £2.36bn between them in 2011-12, up four per cent from the previous season — with the remaining 72 sides in the top four divisions bringing in an estimated £675m. Of the £2.36bn, over half (£1.189bn) came from TV rights, with £625m from sponsorship deals and just under £547m from matchday tickets. The closest rival to England’s top-flight money machine, the Bundesliga, had a combined income of £1.515bn. But German sides recorded combined operating profits of £154m in 2011-12, compared to the Prem’s £98m — despite the Bundesliga’s total income being lower by more than £800m. That was mainly because three quarters of the extra cash generated by the Premier League ended up in the pockets of players. Manchester City, in winning the title, became the first British club with a wage bill of more than £200m. Total salary costs in the Prem rose by 64 per cent to nearly £1.7bn. Switzer believes the Premier League now has the chance to regain its title as the most profitable in Europe — thanks to TV deals worth £5.5bn over three years and the new Financial Fair Play rules. As well as limiting clubs’ losses, the regulations restrict how much of the extra TV cash can be spent on wages. #htwe
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:26:11 +0000
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