2024/25 Champions League was truly special for Paris Saint-Germain. Ending years of heartbreak, PSG perhaps created the biggest news for the city by winning the title defeating Inter Milan in a rather spectacular fashion. As the congratulations pour in, and the world goes doing its business, we take a moment to study the globalized football ecosystem that we live it. Take the example of the same Champions League final. A team based in Paris, France having Qatari owners with an infusion of private capital from the United States based investors and having 58.3% foreign-born players defeated a team from Milan, Italy whose owners are US-based investors having bought from Chinese owners and currently have 73.1% foreign born players.
Further,
- The Champions League finals reportedly have over 450mn+ viewers from over 200 territories.
- According to Fanatics, PSG’s merchandise partner, fans from 103 different countries have purchased merchandise from the official PSG online store till date.
It is a prime example of how globalized sports is, isn’t it?
Indeed. Sports today is the confluence of soft power, geopolitics, economics and business apart from being the outlet of emotions for fans. Football, being the most followed and the sport with most fans, lie at the centre of it. In such a world, it becomes equally important for the football clubs to become international in its approach because the fan staying in a different country is in no way is less important than its domestic home fan.
In this blog, we look at the internationalisation of football clubs.
Economics of Sports
The basic question perhaps would be why would football clubs emphasize on going international. The answer, while simple, is complex. There are many factors to consider, the foremost of them is that football is no longer just a community sport and by that extension, certainly, the local club is no longer local anymore. It has transformed into a business organization.
In this case, the product is ‘football played’ and the fans are consumers. The difference is not only can these consumers turn into customers buying club merchandise etc. but also are the enablers to what is the biggest form of revenue stream in football club, the commercial revenue. According to the UEFA European Club Financing and Licensing Report 2025, commercial revenue is now a larger revenue contributor than broadcast revenue.
Sponsorship, the biggest component of commercial revenue, has a direct correlation with the fan following of the club. The accumulated concentration of brand-pulling power in the twenty highest revenue generating clubs’ corner half of the entire commercial revenue generated by 730+ top tier European clubs. In FY23, of the estimated €8.9bn total commercial revenue, almost 50% or €4.43bn was accumulated by these twenty clubs and so will be in FY24.
The fans, who fire the commercial engine, come from all over the world making one of the biggest reasons for the club to chart an international presence and growth strategy.
Aided by Broadcast and Digital Growth
In all aspects, football transcends borders. Much of it thanks to the increasing power of connectivity. Premier League, when formed in 1992, did a very smart thing of collective bargaining which essentially meant that the league would collectively ensure a deal to make broadcast available in overseas territories. That led to Premier League clubs being known to a large set of countries and go on to become household names. Today it is available in over 200 countries and incidentally, contributes a larger share in the aggregate annual broadcast revenue. Other leagues followed suit, albeit quite late to adopt the policy. This has resulted in fans of different clubs spawning all over the globe.
Over the last decade, growth in international markets has been supplemented by the other factor – rapid digitization. Social media, an essential offshoot of digitization, has now become one of the club’s mainstays. A measure of global reach can be estimated from the social media following of a club. 25 most followed top tier clubs across the big five leagues have a cumulative social media following of 2.59bn across the key social media platforms.
Both the factors, when combined, make football clubs global powerhouses with millions of followers, something which consumer brands dream to achieve.
Approach to Internationalisation
Every internationalisation approach by a football club has to be preceded by evaluating the target market first, in other words sizing the market, about various factors like:
- Fan Base
- Potential commercial partnership opportunities and long term value
- Local broadcast media value
Market surveys, competitive intelligence, and quantitative studies are all critical components of understanding how about the market. There’s, of course, the ground reality to be dealt with things like cultural fit, local sentiments etc. In such a scenario, some of the approaches applied by clubs can be:
- Seek commercial partnership with local brands: Riding on the primary club’s global popularity, seeking a local sponsor-partner often becomes the easiest way to create an entry point in the target market.
- Partner with or run an academy independently and get involved in local community.
- Technical collaboration with a local football club or league.
- Investments in local football club, fully or partially.
- Focus on local fans, develop supporters’ clubs, arrange screenings and special meet-greet events with club legends and key people, organize a special match and so on. This enables the club to understand the market in a better manner. Content, in this case, plays a major role. In the long term, such kind of connection and growth can also lead to a greater commercial partnership with local brands.
SBI’s Masters in Football Business Management program focuses on extensively on the subject of internationalisation having a dedicated module towards it with expert speakers giving real life case studies to illustrate the subject. The 2025-26 edition of the program, beginning in October 2025, has been announced. In case the subject and the course interests you and you’re looking at kickstarting your career growth in the football industry, you can look at the program details here
In Conclusion
Internationalisation is the need of the hour. With fans coming closer with each passing day, it’s important for the clubs to utilize the opportunity to build a long-lasting and constantly growing global fan community through structured and strategized internationalisation.
The key here is that there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all approach in case of football clubs. Clubs have to adapt to each market reality, the culture and understand what would work and what might not.
