Broadcast revenue: The 20 highest-earning teams in the world

Paul Macdonald

• 1 May 2023 17:00 BST
• 4 min read

Football’s ability to generate broadcast revenue has grown exponentially in recent years, but it varies very much by market, with the Premier League significantly ahead of their rivals.

How clubs generate broadcast revenue

The popularity and power of the Premier League to brand itself both in the UK and overseas have led to far larger revenues than their rivals.

Broadcast revenue is split into two: Domestic rights deals, and international rights deals.

READ MORE: Matchday revenue: The 20 highest-earning teams in the world

Of the big five leagues, the Premier League generates around €1Billion per year more than the others, with deals with Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon to broadcast its matches each week.

La Liga are second, while Ligue 1 languishes a distant fifth. Their Mediapro deal which was supposed to commence in 2022/23 but collapsed and they have had to rely on an Amazon/Canal + fallback on significantly reduced terms.

International rights deals however are where the difference in revenue really mounts up. The Premier League’s global appeal has meant that they have always maintained a healthy advantage over the other leagues, and it has never been more prevalent than now.

READ MORE: Commercial revenue: The 20 highest-earning teams in the world

Newly-announced deals in the USA and in the Nordic countries have allowed the Premier League to stretch a gigantic, insurmountable distance clear. Only La Liga can get anywhere close, mainly thanks to their audience in South America and in the USA, but the remaining three leagues make seven times less per year than the Premier League does.

In respect of individual clubs, Liverpool’s position at the top is in part due to their Premier League revenue, but also their success in the Champions League. They went all the way to the final, playing the maximum number of games in the competition and therefore took a huge amount of revenue.

Their opponent in that final, eventual winners Real Madrid, are second in the list, topping up their renewed domestic TV La Liga deal with their exploits in Europe.

The next three clubs are, predictably, Premier League clubs, with only Barcelona, Atletico and Bayern the only sides capable of competing at this level.

Further down the list we see an abundance of Premier League teams. Even those not even competing in Europe - Newcastle, Leeds, and Everton - earn more than clubs who do simply because of the power of the Premier League deal.

Half of the current list are from the Premier League, and that ratio is almost certainly likely to continue to grow over the coming years.