26 October 2025, the date when two of the biggest clubs, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, clash for the first time in 2025/26 season in what is popularly termed as ‘El Clásico’. The term gained prominence in the way Spanish media used it to describe the match between the giants during the 70’s and 80’s as ‘the match of the century’. Over a period of time, the world caught up with the name and every time these two powerhouse teams clash, the world seems to stop and watch. And for a good reason. Hypothetically, if we consider each social media follower to be unique, then these two giants of football are followed by almost 10% of the world’s population! Yes, they have over 800mn combined social media follower and individually highest amongst all football clubs.
Get the magnitude?
Historically, these two clubs have clashed each other 260 times, including all competitions, where head-to-head, Real Madrid leads by a slight margin with 105 wins while Barcelona picked up 103 wins. The remaining 52 clashes ended as draws.
As mouth-watering as the on-field encounter will be, we look at the off-field business side of the two clubs in this blog.
The Rivalry Extends Off-field
The rivalry between the two giant clubs is not just limited on-field. Off-field too they share a humungous appetite towards creating the best sports clubs in the world and in the process, they also share a few similarities. Both the clubs have a similar ownership structure with fans, called ‘Socios’ owning majority. While Real Madrid has about 90,000 fan-members, FC Barcelona has 144,000. Both the clubs have a democratic voting system which elects its president and other executive members. Although Real Madrid President, Florentino Pérez, is reportedly considering altering the business structure in order to allow private equity to enter the club’s business, for now, it remains fan-member owned.
Speaking of which, both the clubs also have an existing partnerships or association with private equity players. Real Madrid has connections with private equity firms such as Sixth Street and Providence, who helped finance the €1.8bn Santiago Bernabéu redevelopment whereas, FC Barcelona has association with Sixth Street (another similarity) who acquired 25% of the club’s LaLiga TV rights for a 25-year period.
Revenue
Real Madrid became the first club football club to cross €1bn in annual revenue in 23/24 which is monumental in itself. They followed it up with a very impressive 13% increase in 24/25 to reach €1.18bn in gross revenue as shared in the club’s annual meeting. FC Barcelona is close on the heels with a reported €994mn accumulated revenue in 24/25, a mighty jump of 31% over its 23/24 figures. Both the clubs displayed a highly strong commercial value with each of them crossing commercial revenues in excess of €400mn. Real Madrid reported €482mn commercial revenue in 23/24 and seems like more or less a similar figure in 24/25 (details are yet to be shared by the club). FC Barcelona around €429mn in 24/25 slightly up from €421mn reported in 23/24.
Both clubs also have invested considerable resources in developing their individual stadiums and the step has paid off handsomely in case of Real with stadium revenues touching €250mn. Itis expected to cross over €400mn once the Santiago Bernabéu is fully complete and operational. Barcelona, on the other hand, is yet to step in their redeveloped Camp Nou and have already projected a massive faith in high revenues generated through the newly developed stadium.
Wages to Revenue (W/R) Ratio and Profitability
This is one area where the approach of both clubs differs. A controlled W/R ratio from Real Madrid over the last 7 years saw Real Madrid manage a to deliver profits for the last two consecutive years ending 24/25 with a €24mn profit.
For Barcelona, some expensive transfer purchase decisions and the disastrous decision of relaxing wages and salaries hiked leading to a highly inflated wage bill, saw the club perilously cross W/R ratio of 90%. As a result, the club posted a total net loss of more than €430 mn between 2018-20 period before they took steps to control the situation. The new FC Barcelona management led by president Joan Laporta decided on a radical approach to raise funds as LaLiga tightened the financial screws and created a stronger compliance structure. President Joan Laporta’s solution, called ‘economic levers’, a term coined by him, essentially deals with selling their TV and licensing rights for multiple years in the future for immediate cash in hand. Such slew of measures took time for Barcelona to implement reporting a reducing W/R ratio but posting loss of €93mn in 23/24 before reducing to €17mn loss in 24/25 and a positive outlook of moving into the positive zone in 25/26.
Valuation and Brand Index Parameters
Multiple methods and factors are employed to determine a club’s valuation which might lead to a different valuation for the same club:
- As per Sportico’s data released in early 2025, Real Madrid was valued at $6.06bn while FC Barcelona was valued at $5.28bn.
- In a similar manner, Forbes data, released in May 2025, valued Real Madrid at $6.75bn and FC Barcelona at $5.65bn.
- Football Benchmark’s 2025 list features Real Madrid with a €6.278bn in Enterprise Valuation while FC Barcelona was assigned an EV of €4.459bn.
- Brand Finance in its Football 50, 2025 report places Real Madrid as the most valuable brand as well as most valuable club with an estimated €6.0bn price tag, which is 36% higher than the next most valuable, FC Barcelona with €4.4bn.
In the same report, Real Madrid is leading the list with a €1.92bn brand valuation, which refers to the “present value of earnings specifically related to brand reputation” and FC Barcelona follows next with a €1.71bn brand valuation.
In terms of Brand Strength, an index prepared by Brand Financ where the football club is given an index score based on the club’s fan behaviour, their loyalty, their perception and the associated attributes, Real Madrid ranks on top with a score of 94.9 followed closely by FC Barcelona with a score of 94.2. To put things in context, WeChat has been ranked as the world’s strongest brand with a BSI of 95.2 followed by Nike at 94.7 and Google at 94.3. Although the calculation approach and assumptions differ, but in many ways, it’s a measure of the customer or fans attitude towards the brand.
Economic Impact
Apart from the on-field battle, the two clubs, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, and their respective cities impact the Spanish economy strongly. As per the revenue data of 24/25, combined revenue of both clubs contributes to 0.13% of the Spanish GDP (nominal = $1.891 trillion, as per World Economic Outlook database, April 2025) which increased from 0.12% in 2019 and 0.08% in 2009.
Suffice to say a solid increase in combined contribution by both clubs in the country’s GDP.
To Sum Up
The two clubs with all its might are the pallbearers of football in the modern context. From thought leadership, innovation to charting the growth path, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, are the clubs-turned-businesses to look upto.
However, on-field the rivalry just lights up the game. On 26th, as always, once can expect a cracking display of football. In the age of AI, matters have got more interesting, as Opta’s supercomputer has dished out its prediction. According to Opta’s prediction model, Real Madrid have a 45.6% chance of winning, compared to 31% for Barcelona and 23.6% for a draw.
Whichever club has your support, it is only football that wins!
