Premier League struggles to compete with merchandise revenues of Real Madrid & Barcelona

The TV income issue in Spain has been well-documented as the rift began to develop between La Liga clubs. Simply put, Real Madrid and Barcelona had individual TV deals making an estimated €1,500 million more than the next club in the last ten years according to Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido.

But both the clubs have not been sitting tight on the money they’re earning as seen by the millions splashed around for the players they’ve wanted. We all know how much was spent on whom so lets leave that aside.

Guardian recently reported a survey conducted by Sport+Markt and PR Marketing about the rise in football merchandise sales in Europe’s top five leagues. They call it European Football Merchandising Report.

The survey shows that Europe’s top five league generated merchandising and licensing revenue of €631 million last season. And yes, Real Madrid and Barcelona put Spain on top.

The figures from Spain, England, Germany, Italy and France for the 2009/2010 season showed a six percent increase compared to 2008.

La Liga topped the revenue collection of almost €190 million with nearly 80% of the total going to Real Madrid and Barcelona. English Premier League earned €168 million and their share was relatively more evenly distributed. German Bundesliga followed with €130 million, Serie A made €77 million and finally Ligue 1 clubs made €67 million.

According to these figures, the El Clasico rivals made 80% of the €190 in merchandise revenues – which is a massive €152 million to share between Real Madrid and Barcelona in 2009/2010 alone. The only league to make more money than those two giants is the English Premier League.

The survey: Sport+Markt and PR Marketing surveyed 182 top flight clubs and more than 10,000 people from ten countries for the report, which showed that 13.7 million replica shirts were sold in the top five leagues plus Netherlands, Poland Russia, Turkey and Ukraine in the 2009/2010 season.

adidas and Nike had a combined market share of some 83%, with the remaining 34 kits manufacturers selling 2.3 millions jerseys (17% of the total).

A senior consultant at Sport+Markt, Andreas Ullmann said:

“Jersey sales represent the core business of many clubs and are often responsible for around fifty percent of merchandising revenue.”

The top 10 retail revenue collecting clubs were:

  • 1. Real Madrid
  • 2. Barcelona
  • 3. Liverpool
  • 4. Bayern Munich
  • 5. Olympique Marseille
  • 6. Manchester United
  • 7. AC Milan
  • 8. Inter Milan
  • 9. Olympique Lyon
  • 10.Fenerbahce

Source

Also see: The 20 Richest Football Clubs.

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