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Barcelona won the Women's Champions League, Liga F and the Spanish Women's Super Cup last season
The average revenue of the 15 largest women's football clubs in Europe rose 61% to €4.3m (£3.7m) last year, according to analysis by Deloitte.
All but three of the 15 clubs in their Money League study reported double-digit revenue growth in 2022-23.
Barcelona remain at the top after revenue rose 74% to €13.4m (£11.5m), followed by Manchester United with €8m (£6.8m).
Real Madrid are in third place with €7.4m (£6.3m) – up 416% from 2021-22.
Manchester City and Arsenal complete the top five, with Chelsea sixth and Tottenham tenth.
There are eight clubs in the Women's Super League (WSL) in total, with Liverpool, Everton and West Ham in 11th, 13th and 14th place respectively.
“There is huge potential in women’s football. We have been seeing this growth for a number of years, which proves it is not just an isolated case,” Amy Clarke, head of women’s sport in Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, told ` Sport.
“We are seeing a huge explosion of interest in women’s football. We had record crowds and higher viewership numbers last season, which led to increased matchday revenue. And we see a really big focus on the clubs themselves becoming sustainable.”
Figures for men's football showed commercial revenues exceeded broadcasts for the first time since 2016, prompting clubs to explore other revenue streams, something already well established in the women's game.
Unlike men's football, which has traditionally relied on lucrative broadcast deals, last season only 20% of women's clubs' average revenue came from broadcast deals, with commercial revenue accounting for 58% and matchday revenue accounting for 22%.
The broadcast revenue in the individual leagues also varies greatly: the broadcast rights of the English WSL and the Spanish League F amounted to around 8 million euros in 2022/23, around eight times as much as the broadcast rights of the Italian Serie A Femminile (1 million euros). became fully professional from the 2022/23 season.
This means that even within the same leagues, clubs have tried different ways of generating revenue. For example, in the WSL, Manchester United generated 74% of their revenue through commercial partnerships, while Arsenal generated 58% of their revenue from matchday revenue after several sell-out games at the Emirates Stadium.
According to Clarke, this has led to a “test and learn startup culture” in women’s football, providing “room for experimentation on and off the pitch”.
“We have always said that women's football should not just copy the template of men's football and this proves that point perfectly because men's football needs to diversify for financial reasons as it can no longer rely on central broadcast deals,” Clarke said.
“Women’s football has always had to think differently about its business model. This could be in terms of rethinking the matchday experience for the women's football fan, who may be more technically savvy, or in terms of the support that the players and backcourt staff receive.”
“In this digital age, this fan base will stick around and demand more from women’s football. So I expect it to continue to move and adapt because that’s how it’s always had to grow from the ground up.”
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For non-UK clubs, Deloitte has used an average exchange rate for the year ending June 30, 2023 (€1 = 0.87 GBP; 1 € = 5.4 BRL; 1 € = 1.05 USD). |
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