The start of the 2024/25 professional soccer leagues across Europe, in turn, revived an annual debate about which League may be considered best, typically defined as offering the most exciting and competitive games, an unpredictability of outcome, and high levels of skill (Opta Power Rankings, 2024). On the field of play, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the dominance of Italian clubs, principally A.C. Milan and Inter Milan alongside the Turin-based side, Juventus F.C., ensured that teams from Serie A dominated European club competitions, winning the UEFA Champions League on four occasions between 1989 and 1996 (n.b. In 1989 the competition was referred to as the ‘European Cup’). The epicentre of football’s powerbase shifted to Spain for much of the following decade, with Real Madrid winning four Champions League titles between 1998 and 2006 and an unfortunate Valencia side losing two finals during this same period, including one to their La Liga rivals. Thereafter, notwithstanding the periodic challenge presented by F.C. Barcelona, Real Madrid and, to a lesser extent, the German clubs Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, the competitive landscape has been firmly dominated by clubs from the English Premier League (EPL). From 2008 until now, the EPL has produced five winners and a further 7 finalists in Europe’s premier club competition leading some to conclude, certainly in terms of on-field success, it should now be regarded as the global game’s foremost domestic league. Of course, the success of any one team does not offer sufficient evidence as to the strength of the respective domestic league but it does confirm clubs in that league are competitive beyond their national boundaries and, assuming there is a degree of challenge offered by other competitors in that domestic league, its overall standing, in turn, remains strong.
Evidence of the remarkable commercial revenue-generating potential of the EPL, a key factor in its teams’ European dominance over the past decade and a half, was provided in the recent Annual Review of Football Finance 2024 report, published in June by Deloitte. At Euro 348 million, the average revenue of clubs in the EPL substantially eclipses those of the other main European leagues which, collectively, are referred to as the ‘Big Five’. Yet, despite reporting an aggregate operating profit in 2022/23, by contrast, these same clubs reported an aggregate pre-tax loss for the fifth consecutive year (£685 million in 2022/23, a 14% increase year-on-year) (Deloitte, 2024). The primary challenge to their profitability remains the salaries payable to some of the game’s best players and, despite UEFA’s increasingly laser-like focus on financial fair play, the transfer fees required to attract some of the world’s top performers to the League. Interestingly, of the four EPL clubs that did post a pre-tax profit, three would be regarded as having among the League’s more modest profiles, AFC Bournemouth, Brentford F.C. and Brighton and Hove Albion F.C., albeit the latter two clubs did finish in the League’s top ten clubs at the end of the 23/24 season. What the achievement of these clubs demonstrates, of course, is it is possible to field a competitive on-field side and still return an overall financial profit, but this requires strong, rational governance, the removal of emotion when making football-related decisions, and, therefore, an avoidance of the age-old temptation that befalls too many club owners of ‘chasing the dream’.
The overall revenue-generating strength of the EPL and its constituent clubs, however, is due in large part to its broadcast income, which grew to £3.2 billion in 2022/23. There is an in-built requirement, therefore, for the League to remain attractive to the consumer, to offer entertainment value, to ensure the technical standard of the games remains high, as does their competitiveness, but also to generate advertising revenue for the broadcasting companies, which requires an unpredictability of outcome, so-called ‘fixture attractiveness’ and broad consumer appeal for the League as a form of entertainment in an increasingly congested and competitive landscape.
As such, in the case of elite domestic club football in England, there exists a remarkable revenue-generating entity, in the form of the EPL, predicated largely on broadcast (television) income from a commercial third-party investor that wishes to recoup its considerable outlay through advertising revenue and consumer subscriptions, but to achieve all of this, most clubs are being required to spend more than they earn each year, casting them in debt and, by extension, placing their future prosperity at risk. The critical factor that binds this entire joint venture, therefore, is the competitive balance of the League because if this begins to erode, the overall attractiveness of the EPL as a source of entertainment, as a means of selling products or as an entertainment subscription service, declines, and this ‘external’ money risks going elsewhere.
However, what this examination of the EPL also serves to remind us of is that sport as a sector has multiple objectives, not simply economic ones, as reflected in its diverse and numerous stakeholders. All too often, the EPL foregrounds its remarkable revenue-generating capacity, but the danger in doing so is that the contribution of sport, in this case of football, to the social and cultural ‘balance sheet’ of life is overlooked, commodified and put beyond the reach of consumers. Sport’s value to society cannot and should not be viewed, as it is too readily, in purely financial terms. Indeed, the degree to which this has happened in some of the world’s foremost leagues and sports should serve as a salutary warning to many more of the dangers of becoming fixated on driving revenue. That sport attracts ever greater levels of income is not entirely surprising and is not always the result of decisions made at an executive board level. Rather, it is much simpler than that – sport is fundamentally about competition, a platform for the exemplification of personal and collective qualities that humans respond to and shapes a form of passionate alliance with clubs and teams that often stays with people throughout their entire life cycle.
The seminal work of Walter Neale, considering the ‘peculiar’ characteristics of sport that make it particularly challenging to analyse when compared with conventional economic marketplaces, is worthy of brief reprise as it perfectly illustrates this point. Neale states that three factors are important when considering the economic decisions made in the context of sport: 1. Clubs and Leagues constitute a form of joint production; 2. Redistribution is critical, and 3. Supporters of all sports clubs exhibit an extraordinary degree of loyalty to their clubs. It is often the case that in pursuing success for their team, fans of a sport can lose sight of the need to ensure competitiveness across a successful sports competition, indeed it is its very lifeblood. Likewise, some clubs (and their fans) resile at the idea that money they believe they had disproportionately generated, i.e. they are considered an attractive and competitive team to a greater proportion of fans of the sport in question, may, even in part, be channelled to support the performance of other teams they are, ostensibly, competing against. Indeed, such an approach appears almost counter-intuitive to some supporters, but this is an example where the ‘sum is greater than any individual part’. It is the success of the League that is the key objective because it is this that attracts broadcaster and sponsor investment, sells the match day packages and convinces those who watch sports at home to purchase subscriptions. Finally, the ‘fan equity’ in sports, the extraordinary consumer-producer relationship remains unique in business terms and, regrettably, may be subject to exploitation for commercial gain. It is why a robust regulatory environment, oftentimes underwritten by legislation, such as the proposed role of a new Independent Football Regulator as one part of a Bill introduced by the UK Government to safeguard the future governance of Britain’s ‘national’ sport, can perform a vital role.
But the final point that Neale makes is arguably his most salient – a clarion call for the protection of sport’s very essence. There is no doubt that the EPL, by any rational measurement, is a successful domestic football league, acutely aware of the need to promote its competitive balance as a strategy and bulwark against rising competition from other global sports and finite spending on leisure and entertainment by consumers. But sport – and football – at this level has an ephemeral aspect and it is why ensuring the vibrancy of a sport at a grassroots level or even at a sub-elite level is vital to its overall success and its standing in the national psyche. Because for all the unrivalled production value of modern-day televised sports, the best way to promote any sport, from swimming to football and everything in between, is to create opportunities for people to participate in it.
