2023/24 would be remembered as the season when Real Madrid became the first football club to cross €1bn in revenue in a season. In other words, Real Madrid has become one of the top 0.0045% companies in the world! (based on data from Bloomberg & Statista)
Deloitte’s 2025 edition of Football Money League report includes Flamengo, arguably, the most popular team in Brazil with more than 46.9 million fans, equivalent to 21.9% of the population that supports a team in Brazil, is the only non-European club to be included in the list of 30 highest revenue-generating club.
In this blog, we look at the highest revenue generating ‘Moneyed League’ clubs.
Revenue Growth
The combined revenue of 20 highest revenue generating clubs as per Deloitte’s list in 2023/24 is €11.2bn, a 6% growth over the 2022/23 value and 21% over the pre-pandemic revenue of €9.3bn in 2018/19
These top 20 clubs combined generates 30% of the total European football industry revenue as per the Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance data estimate
Looking further into the growth story the question arises, how much did each revenue stream contribute in the aggregate of these 20 clubs?
- Commercial revenue stream generates 44% of the total
- Broadcast revenue 38%
- Matchday revenue stream 18%
The interesting thing is, both matchday and commercial revenue streams have grown by almost 11% over 22/23 figures. This is testament to the focus on investments in stadium redevelopment.
Leagues Within
The 30 highest revenue generating clubs can be categorized into three sub-categories. As per 2023/24 revenue:
- The top layer of 10 clubs have an average revenue of €757.8mn
- The next layer consisting of 10 clubs have an average revenue of €362.8mn, nearly half of the top layer
- The third layer of the next 10 clubs have an average revenue of €228.2mn
Important thing to note is that the gap between each layer is increasing year-on-year. Between the top two layers, the gap in increasing at a CAGR pf 5.4% while between the next two layers, the gap is increasing even faster, at a rate of 10.4% CAGR.
Further, it won’t be a big surprise to understand that 14 clubs have remained in top 20 over the last 5 years. Incidentally, 9 clubs out of these 15 were a part of the erstwhile Super League.
PE/MCO Connect
With big money involvement, it opens doors to private equity investment. Same principle at the moneyed league clubs. 47% or 14 of the 23/24 top 30 money-league clubs are backed by investors with a private equity (PE) connect. Now, here is a more interesting fact, private equity investments have been spawning multi-club ownership (MCO) structure in the football industry, mostly starting with the highest revenue generating clubs:
- 60% or 18 of the top 30 money-league clubs are part of the multi-club ownership (MCO) network
- 30% or 9 of the top 30 money-league clubs are part of both, the MCO network as well as PE connected
The trend is expected to continue at a faster pace.
Clubs With Maximum Growth
The five clubs who grew most in revenues from the pre-pandemic 2018/19 revenue in the order of highest growth percentage:
- Arsenal – 61%
- Real Madrid – 38%
- Manchester City – 37%
- Borussia Dortmund – 36%
- PSG – 27%
Interesting to see:
- Arsenal grew by 105% in commercial revenue stream in this period, followed by Manchester City with 56%
- Real Madrid grew by 71% in matchday revenue stream followed by Borussia Dortmund at 55%
On the other end of the spectrum, clubs who have degrown in the same period are Barcelona and Juventus clocking 10% and 23% negative growth respectively
Financial Sustainability Check
Wages to revenue (W/R) ratio is considered a good measure of the football club’s financial sustainability. The 23/24 W/R ratio reveals:
- Four clubs have W/R ratio greater than 70%
- Average W/R ratio of the top 20 revenue generating clubs in 23/24 is 61% (excepting Olympique de Marseille who have not shared the data) an increase from 59% in 22/23. However, it’s a considerable improvement from 70% reported in 21/22
- FC Barcelona & Chelsea have reported an increase in their W/R ratio
- While PSG saw the W/R ratio increase to 83% from 77% reported in 22/23. FC Barcelona and Chelsea reported a decrease to reach a more sustainable level
In Conclusion
European football’s focus on revenue streams have shifted from broadcasting being the dominant growth driver to commercial and matchday revenue streams, which is consistent with the slowdown in media rights vale. Clubs will have to focus more on diversifying commercial revenue further into sub-streams all the while look at strengthening their matchday revenue streams, either by redeveloping the stadium completely or partially
