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Real Madrid financial statement 2009/10 | Real Madrid financial account

September 9, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Finance:
Sunday the 19th of September the financial results for the financial year 2009/10 (July – July) will be revealed at the Real Madrid assembly.
The result for the campaign 2009/10 was a turnover of 429.8 million Euros. 29.5 million more than the previous season. Profits of 23.8 millions 2.4 million more than the season 2008/09. The total debt was reduced by 82 € million Euros to 245 € millions.

The passive debt is 543.20 € million Euros – 20 € million less than the previous year.
The income stems from 3 revenue streams:
-member subscriptions and tickets 148,5 millions.
-TV 136.1 millions.
-Sponsorship deals and merchandising 122.4 millions.

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: Real Madrid financial report 2009/10, Real Madrid financial statement 2009/10

Best selling soccer jerseys globally Real Madrid and Manchester United

September 7, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Finance:
According to the website sporting intelligence Real Madrid and Manchester United are the two clubs in the world selling the most soccer jerseys. The sales are based on the years 2005-2009 a period in which Cristiano Ronaldo played with both clubs.
The figures for the two clubs range from 1.2 – 1.5 million sold years a year throughout this period of time.
If one looks exclusively at the seasons 2009/10 and 2010/11 one might expect that Real Madrid holds the lead since the move of Ronaldo to Madrid has surely played a factor in the sales for both clubs.
FC Barcelona comes in third with a maximum of 1.2 million sold units a season throughout the period of time under investigation.

The only club not featuring over the clubs selling the most jerseys but being on the top 10 of Deloitte’s richlist is AS Roma. The reason for this is probably that Roma’s kit sponsor is Kappa which does not have the global distribution network of adidas or Nike. All other clubs in the top 10 are either Nike or adidas teams.
The combined figures of the two top soccer apparel brands put them at about the same level.

See the comparison statistics between Nike and adidas here

The original study was undertaken by German company PR-Marketing

To read the article in Spanish click here:

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: best selling football shirt, best selling soccer jersey, Real Madrid jersey sales, Real Madrid shirt sales

UEFA Champions League money for Real Madrid 2009/10

August 26, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Finance:
The UEFA Champions League financial report has now been released by UEFA.
See the UEFA CL financial report report here!

Inter Milan leads the prize money list with a total income from the Champions League of 48,759,000 Euros.
In comparison Real Madrid took in 26,825,000 Euros.
The figure is comprised by the following numbers:
Participation: 3,800,000 €
Match: 3,300,000 €
Performance: 3,600,000 €
Market Pool (TV): 13,125,000 €
1st knock out round: 3,000,000 €
See the Real Madrid results here!

The team making by far the most TV money was Manchester United with 28,811,000 € followed by Liverpool with 19,777,000 € even though Liverpool did not make to the knock out stages and Man Utd was eliminated in the quarter-finals.
For the same reason Manchester United made the second most money from the tournament with 45,811,000 €. Displacing FC Bayern for third place with 44,862,000 €.
Most likely the TV money generated by the UEFA Champions League are related to the local markets and local TV deals. Since Sky Sports in the UK is the richest TV deal both for the rights to the Premier League and to the local rights to the Champions League it probably reflects on the TV money flowing to the English clubs.
The local teams are the preferred teams to show on TV nationally, those which bring in the biggest audience, and thereby most sponsorship money, and thereby TV revenue.
So even though the Champions League is a European wide tournament being broadcast globally there is still a strong national and regional impact on the financial side.
Real Madrid only came in 11th on the overall list over prize money for the campaign 2009/10.
And only slightly better as number 10 on the TV market pool money list.
The reason for that is that the Spanish TV market is significantly smaller than the German the English market. And of course on the pitch results also play a role. Real Madrid was eliminated in the round of 16.
Here is how UEFA defines it:
“Monies from the market pool were distributed according to the proportional value of the national TV market each individual club represented, among other factors, so the amounts given varied from country (or national association) to country.”

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: Real Madrid Champions League revenues, Real Madrid CL income, Real Madrid prize money Champions League

The irrelevancy of the World Cup in the era of modern football

July 14, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Analysis:
Another World Cup comes to an end. By the end of it only one team is cheering. Most other teams are disappointed though a few are more or less satisfied with their results. As with all things in life the World Cup in football/soccer has evolved over the course of time. However, in the case of football the evolution over the past 20 years has deemed the tournament largely irrelevant by 2010. Though the World Cup itself has not changed much since its glory days of the 60s , 70s , and 80s the surrounding landscape of football is a very different story from what it was as late as the 1980s.
To understand what has happened and how it effects the World Cup of the 21st century one might compare the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 with that in South Africa 2010.
In 1986 there was no cable TV, no satellite TV and just a few channels in each country run by the government. In many countries the local league was not televised because the clubs were afraid that it would take spectators away from the stadiums and since there were few TV commercials and no extra TV packages for sports it would take revenue away from the clubs.
Furthermore the broadcasting of foreign leagues was limited. Often only highlights of the goals were available.
No Internet and a very limited DVD and video market meant that all in all football on TV was very scarce compared to what it is in 2010 where it is very plentiful.
The international club tournaments were cups in the true sense of the word with no seeding of the teams. Only the champions of the local league would participate and therefore even if the international matches were broadcast on TV often many of the best teams and the best players would only appear very rarely because either their team did no qualify or they were knocked out at an early stage.
Foreign players on teams was usually capped at 2 meaning that the concentration of top talent was much more limited than in 2010. At club level there was no dream team with players handpicked across the world.
It meant that to see best players from one country who played abroad the only chance was to watch them for the national team since these matches were usually shown on national TV (public service obligation) but not the foreign league.
To watch a World Cup would often be the chance to watch the great international stars play in full time length of a match – while the only live motion picture available of those stars otherwise would be short clips of high lights. Many of the best Brazilians and Argentinians would play at home and players would emerge on the world scene at the World Cup whom nobody abroad had ever watched before or even heard about.
Today top talent leaves their home country at an ever earlier age and almost all the top talent is playing or has played at European clubs.

So while scarcity made the World Cup as late as 1990 a truly unique event the enormously extensive coverage of football from the 1990s and beyond has meant all the top players are the World Cup are very familiar faces whom most spectators have watched dozens up times throughout the year and hundreds of time over all. They come to the World Cup at the back of a season with an enormous amount of matches and team up with players whom they do not play with on a weekly basis. The result – quality is suffering.
The World Cup is hosted in increasingly exotic locations where few people travel to and where the locals have no special interest in the tournament. The atmosphere in the stadium is dull compared to what is found at club matches where each and every single spectator is very involved in the match since it is their team.
So all the aspects which made the World Cup exciting as late as 1990 are no absent and have moved over to club football primarily the UEFA Champions League which offers the most excitement since it brings together the best of the best and the brightest of the bright.

The question is whether reform can make the World Cup more relevant for the future or whether it is simply a lot case in the course of evolution.
I think few people got very excited about the World Cup 2010. Probably many people watched many matches but all the aspects making it a thrill in the past were absent and nothing new had taking its’ place in order to renew the driver behind the tournament.
The relative scarcity of the product with one tournament only every 4 years does not seem to be enough to make it attractive. Too many dull and irrelevant matches with too much TV exposure makes the seemingly short duration of 1 month a rather lengthy affair by the end of it. The new TV gold formula with matches taking place in succession rather than at the same time gives over-exposure for the average spectator watching a fair number of matches.
So by the end of the World Cup 2010 the fact remains. The World Cup has lost its’ relevancy whether it is possible to re-invent somehow to serve a purpose in international football is unknown though. It remains to be seen.

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: boring World Cup, World Cup boredom

1.2 million Real Madrid RONALDO 9 jerseys sold in Madrid

May 2, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Real Madrid Numbers:
According to the Portuguese sportspaper A Bola (the ball) Real Madrid has sold 1.2 million jerseys with RONALDO 9 in Madrid alone. The numbers should have been release by the club itself. Real Madrid has two stores itself in Madrid. One at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu and one in downtown Madrid very close to Puerta del Sol.
Whether the sales figure stems alone from these two stores is unclear or whether the sales also include what other retailers in Madrid have sold. Among the other retailers carrying the official Real Madrid jersey with the Ronaldo 9 name and number printing is another Madrid institution: El Corte Ingles. El Corte Ingles is a department store with branches across the Iberian peninsula. El Corte Ingles used to run the realmadrid.com online shop but since they are working primarily within the Spanish market this job was ultimately taken over my an UK online retailer with a more global perspective. However, El Corte Ingles has been well-stocked sports departments in its’ Madrid stores and one must assume that they have a considerable sale at these stores. Especially of Real Madrid but also of most other major Spanish teams including town rival Atletico Madrid + the usual suspects internationally such Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, AC Milan, Inter, Juventus, FC Bayern etc.
But of course Madrid is not the only place where the Real Madrid Ronaldo 9 jersey is on sale so the world wide sales must have been considerable. A boon for adidas, Sporting ID (the producer of the name and number kit), and the club itself Real Madrid.

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Filed Under: CR7, Finance, Real Madrid Gear Tagged With: CR9 jersey, Real Madrid jersey sales, Real Madrid jersey sales figures, Real Madrid Ronaldo 9 jersey, Ronaldo 9 jersey

Best selling jerseys … | NBA jerseys that is..

April 29, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Sporting Goods:
NBA has recently released the sales rankings from their website nba.com and their New York flagship store.
The news was published on the nba.com website! best selling NBA jerseys for the season 2009/10.

The results might not come as any major surprise to most people.
1. Kobe Bryant Lakers | Los Angeles
2. LeBron James Cavs | Cleveland
3. Kevin Garnett Celtics | Boston
4. Derrick Rose Bulls | Chicago
5. Dwight Howard Magic | Orlando
6. Dwyane Wade Heat | Miami
7. Chris Paul Hornets | New Orleans
8. Paul Pierce Celtics | Boston
9. Kevin Durant Thunder | Oklahoma
10. Carmelo Anthony Nuggets | Denver
11. Nate Robinson Celtics | Boston
12. David Lee Knicks | New York
13. Brandon Roy Trail Blazers | Portland
14. Pau Gasol Lakers | Los Angeles

The biggest names in the games + the biggest clubs and the winning teams from major cities make up the winning combination. Add to the mix novelty and offensive firepower and you will have accounted for the majority of the variance in the equation.

The best selling team merchandise was also published:
1. Lakers | Los Angeles
2. Celtics | Boston
3. Cavs | Cleveland
4. Bulls | Chicago
5. Knicks | New York
6. Nuggets | Denver
7. Magic | Orlando
8. Heat | Miami
9. Spurs | San Antonio
10. Suns | Phoenix

Again the list is not very surprising. One major absentee is Dallas and the Mavericks. However, they might suffer from the popularity of their town colleagues the Dallas Cowboys which is the most popular football team in the US.

What are the ramifications for soccer then ?
The best selling jersey in Spain for the season 2009/10 is without doubt either…
RONALDO 9 Real Madrid
or
MESSI 10 FC Barcelona

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: NBA, NBA jerseys

The Randomness of Soccer! UEFA Champions League’s “relatively” random outcome

April 29, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Analysis:
On April the 28th 2010 Inter Milan knocked out FC Barcelona from the UEFA Champions League after losing 1-0 on the Camp Nou due to their 3-1 reserve balance from the first leg of the tie. Inter coach José Mourinho and not the players was at center of the attention. Mourinho had almost singlehandedly been FC Barcelona by his masterful strategy which was defining for the outcome and not the actual performance of the players on the pitch or at least only to the extent that they carried the orders of their boss.
However, looking a bit closer at the setup one might conclude that it is not the surprising at all that a team like Inter makes it to the final. With or without Mourinho on the bench.
A number of pivotal events took place during the 1990s in order to shape the game of today with the results of the current day.
1992-1993 was the inaugural season of the UEFA Champions League taking over from the European Cup and with a restructuring of the finances making it a much more profitable tournament.
December 1995 saw the Bosman ruling which would see a profound effect on the European football landscape starting with the 1996/97 season. (For more about the Bosman ruling click here)
1997/98 saw the introduction of runners up in the national leagues being allowed into the holy land of the Champions League. A system which would later be further expanded so the biggest leagues will now have upto 4 teams participating each year.
The consulting firm and auditing company Deloitte each year publishes a list over the richest clubs in Europe. The Deloitte money league. This annual list has been published since the 2004/05 season. See more in the wikipedia about the previous rankings.

Below are the winners and the runners up of the UEFA Champions League since the Bosman ruling.
1996–97 GER Borussia Dortmund 3–1 Juventus ITA
1997–98 ESP Real Madrid 1–0 Juventus ITA
1998–99 ENG Manchester United 2–1 FC Bayern GER
1999–2000 ESP Real Madrid 3–0 Valencia ESP
2000–01 GER Bayern Munich 1–1 Valencia ESP
2001–02 ESP Real Madrid 2–1 Leverkusen GER
2002–03 ITA AC Milan 0–0 Juventus ITA
2003–04 POR Porto 3–0 Monaco FRA
2004–05 ENG Liverpool 3–3 AC Milan ITA
2005–06 ESP FC Barcelona 2–1 Arsenal ENG
2006–07 ITA AC Milan 2–1 Liverpool ENG
2007–08 ENG Manchester United 1–1 Chelsea ENG
2008–09 ESP FC Barcelona 2–0 Man United ENG
2009-10 ITA FC Inter X-X FC Bayern GER

Below is the Deloitte Moneylist for the season 2008/09. Amounts are in millions Euros.
1 Real Madrid 401.4
2 FC Barcelona 365.9
3 Manchester Utd 327.0
4 Bayern Munich 289.5
5 Arsenal 263.0
6 Chelsea 242.3
7 Liverpool 217.0
8 Juventus 203.2
9 Inter FC 196.5
10 AC Milan 196.5
11 Hamburger SV 146.7
12 AS Roma 146.4
13 Olympique Lyon 139.6
14 Olymp Marseille 133.2
15 Tottenham H 132.7
16 Schalke 04 124.5
17 Werder Bremen 114.7
18 Borussia Dortmund 103.5
19 Manchester City 102.2
20 Newcastle United 101.0

Below are the aggregated numbers for the seasons 2004/05 , 05/06, 06/07, 07/08, 08/09 for the top 10 clubs. Previous year’s position in parenthesis.
1. Real Madrid 401.4 365.8 351.8 (1) 292.2 (1) 275.7 (1)
2. Manchester Utd 327 324.8 315.4 (2) 242.6 (4) 246.4 (2)
3. FC Barcelona 365.9 308.8 291.1 (3) 259.1 (2) 207.9 (6)
4. Bayern Munich 289.5 295.3 223.7 (7) 204.7 (8) 189.5 (7)
5. Chelsea FC 242 268.9 284.4 (4) 221.0 (6) 220.8 (5)
6. Arsenal FC 263 264.4 264.2 (5) 177.4 (9) 171.3 (10)
7. Liverpool 217 210.9 202.1 (8) 176.0 (10) 181.2 (8)
8. AS Milan 196.5 209.5 227.7 (6) 238.7 (5) 234.0 (3)
9. AS Roma 146.4 (12)175.4 157.7 (10) 127.0 (12) 131.8 (11)
10. Inter 196.5 (9) 172.9 (10)195.4 (9) 206.6 (7) 177.2 (9)

So out of the 10 richest clubs in Europe only Juventus has not been permanently on the top 10 list since its’ inauguration in 2004/05. AS Roma is on the list instead but over time as the relegation to Serie B is cancelled out Juventus will be club present among the 10 big.
So for the past 14 season since the Bosman ruling and with the addition of the new format for Champions League + the huge revenue growth and thereby income for the participating clubs 1 club which is not on the current top 20 list has won. FC Porto in the season 2003/04. A further three clubs have made it to the final Valencia, Monaco, and Bayer Leverkusen. Valencia has figured on the top 20 list from time to time though. For the past 6 seasons only top 10 clubs have made the final. The only 2 top 10 Deloitte clubs not making the final within the past 6 seasons are Juventus (AS Roma) and Real Madrid.
To explain the victory of FC Porto is not difficult. Randomness. Due to the format of the tournament there will from time to time be an upset winner but increasingly seldom. To have one surprise winner in 14 years is hardly a testament to great chances for the outsider. To see an Inter vs. Bayern final is however totally in line with what one would expect.
Money cannot buy you success but money can buy you the chance to have success. Approximately a 10% chance to win to be exact. 9 big clubs get 10% chance each and the occasional outsider whether it being Lyon, Roma, Porto or Monaco gets the last ticket in the lottery. If or when Juventus gets restored to former glory the chance will decrease to 9% for each of the top 10 clubs and a 9% for a surprise winner.
Could Mancini have done it ? Probably. Could Pellegrini have done it ? Probably. At least with the same probability as any of the other coaches.
There seems to be no correlation between team and success and coach and success among the top 10 clubs. Otherwise there would have been many more repeat wins. No true dynasties dominating have managed to establish themselves which is probably to the benefit of the tournament. Sports lives of the randomness and the unpredictability of the outcome (as do the bookmakers and betting houses).

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: coach role in success, money and success, UEFA Champions League

Real Madrid the world’s second most valuable soccer club | Man United number 1

April 22, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Soccer Money:
According to the American business magazine Forbes – Real Madrid is the second most valuable soccer club in the world. The calculation made to reach the value and the corresponding rating is through a model of historic revenues + multiples. Number one on the list was Manchester United.
Forbes SportsMoney top 20 list over the world’s wealthiest soccer clubs
To learn more about the specific data of Real Madrid click on the link below:
Real Madrid value
The clubs on the Forbes list are more or less the same as on the Deloitte’s list over the 20 biggest clubs by revenues. Only the order has been slightly shaked up.
The ranking and the value according to Forbes:
1. Man Utd is worth $ 1.84 billion.
Real Madrid is worth $ 1.32 billion
Arsenal comes in third with $1.18 billion
Fourth goes to FC Barcelona $ 1,000 billion
5. Bayern Munich $ 990 millions
Liverpool $ 882 millions
AC Milan $ 800 millions
Juventus $ 656 millions
Chelsea $ 646 millions
10. Inter $ 413 millions

So Manchester United is by far the most valuable club beating the number 1 and 2 on the Deloitte’s list Real and Barca handsomely. Forbes proposes that the vast differences in earnings and thus value among the top clubs and the increasing discrepancy is due to the global vs. local distinction. The global brands have far greater earning potential than the local brands. Two out of three revenue streams are however primarily local and national: stadium and TV while only the third that of marketing and sponsorships has more of a global dimension.

Below the top 10 list are the following clubs taking up the spots 11-20:
Schalke 04 $ 384 millions
Tottenham $ 372 millions
Lyon $ 333 millions
HSV $ 329 millions
AS Roma $ 308 millions
Werder Bremen $274 millions
Marseille $ 262 millions
Borussia Dortmund $ 261 millions
Manchester City $ 258 millions
Newcastle United $ 198 millions

So how is the distribution on countries.
The 5 big European leagues take up all the 20 top spots on the list:
England – 7
Germany – 5
Italy – 4
Spain – 2
France – 2

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: Forbes most valuable soccer teams, most valuable football clubs, Real Madrid's value

Real Madrid second highest paid sports team in the world | Real Madrid average wages | Real Madrid Payroll

March 30, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

News:
According to the figures by the website Sporting Intelligence Real Madrid is the sporting in the world with the second highest average salaries after New York Yankees:
Real Madrid players average salaries

The list from the UK publication states that the players in the Real Madrid first team squad made an average of 4,235,110 £ million Pounds a year for the season 2008/09. As of today’s exchange rate that would correspond to average player earnings of 4,708,546 € Euros a year or 6,339,615 $ million USD dollars.
The Real Madrid first squad consists of 24 players. According to the section 17.3 on page 55 of the club’s annual report the total expenses to salaries among the football players accounted for 145,023,000 € million Euros for the season 2008/09. One might expect that the vast majority of this money is shared among the first team players even though Real Madrid has several youth teams on contracts as well. So the average of dividing 145,023,000 into 24 gives a total of 6,042,625 € Euros. 4,708,546 (the figure according to the report by Sporting Intelligence) * 24 = 113,005,104 € million Euros. So there is a discrepancy of some 32 € million Euros between the amount published by Sporting Intelligence and the amount stated by the club in its’ annual statement. That difference may occur if the numbers by Sporting Intelligence are gross salaries while the numbers from Real Madrid include performance related bonuses. Plus of course that a certain amount is paid to players on the Real Madrid second team Castilla and on some of their youth teams + maybe the wages of the training staff is also included. But in any case the salaries of youth players and training staff can never amount to 32 € million Euros so the reason has to be another for this discrepancy. Most likely bonus related.

One might expect that with the big time signings of Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema etc. for the season 2009/10 the player’s wages would rise significantly compared to the season 2008/09. However, the provisional budget for the season 2009/10 (see page 80 of the Real Madrid financial report 2008/09) shows only an expected rise in total payroll for the club from 187 € million Euros to 190 € million Euros for the season 2009/10. These preliminary figures do not specifically break out player’s wages and administrative staff’s wages but in any case the difference is not very significant.

The full list follows below. To see the figures listed in £ Pounds click here:
Sporting Intelligence top 10 highest paying sports clubs
To get the figures in USD $ check the following page:
World top paying sporting teams in dollars

Since we are dealing with Real Madrid here we will bring the list calculated in Euros though. The amounts are average salaries in Euros € for the first team squad. So a NY Yankees player would take in 5,2 million Euros on average:
1. New York Yankees: 5,197,215 € (baseball) (number of active players on 40 man roster 2009/10: 25)
2. Real Madrid: 4708546 € (soccer) (number of players 24)
3. FC Barcelona: 4521866 € (soccer) (number of players 24)
4. Chelsea FC: 3985967 € (soccer) (number of players 24)
5. Dallas Mavericks: 3951099 € (basketball) (number of players 2009/10: 13)
6. LA Lakers: 3790399 € (basketball) (number of players 2009/10: 13)
7. Detroit Pistons: 3713393 € (basketball) (number of players 2009/10: 14)
8. Cleveland Cavaliers: 3672787 € (basketball) (number of players 2009/10: 15)
9. Boston Celtics: 3631380 € (basketball) (number of players 2009/10: 14)
10.New York Knicks: 3628888 € (baskterball) (number of players 2009/10: 14)

So the reason why so many basketball teams are represented probably lies in the smaller team squads. While American football with +50 players on the roster might be lower down the list due to the art of the calculation which deals with “average” salaries. If the calculation had been for median salaries the list might look differently since there is usually a very wide spread between top earners and those at the bottom.

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: Real Madrid payroll, Real Madrid player salaries, real madrid player wages

Prospects of soccer in the USA | Potential for Real Madrid across the pond

March 27, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Analysis:
With the ambitions of FIFA to grow soccer across the world as well as the ambitions of the major clubs to grow their brands internationally the USA has been a target for more than two decades by now. The reasons for this interest in the USA and the US sporting market are obvious. The US is the world’s biggest economy. The USA has a long tradition for sports and sports is an integral part of most Americans’ lives. Furthermore the USA is the forerunner in the development of sports as a business and the sporting industry as a whole. Sports on TV and professional sports franchises as we know them all over the world by now have their origin in the USA.
European soccer as it has developed since the early 1990s and the enormous development it has seen across all possible benchmarks has found the inspiration for the initiatives leading to this development to no small extent in the USA. However, the “re-conquering” of the USA in terms of launching soccer there as a major professional sport has so far not paid dividends. The professional league there the Major League Soccer might be growing but has not so far reached a popularity or a money generation level which had been expected and even less so as to what had been hoped for.
The explanations for this “failure” are various but often centers around the specific character of the sport compared to the traditional American sports. These reasons go along the lines of: There are no time outs ( commercial breaks), too few goals are scored, the matches often end in a draw, too few shots on goal, too little flow with the many minor breaks (free kicks , corner kicks , throw in, substitutions), delay of game, no incentive to run up the score leading to defensive play once a team gets ahead.. etc.
However, sports even in the USA is not that static that all that makes up a successful cocktail boils down to the rule set of a sport. Baseball used to be the “American pastime” and the by far most popular sport in the country. Then during the 1990s the NBA and basketball suddenly saw a steep rise in popularity to no small extent due to the Michael Jordan factor. And since the mid to late 1990s the NFL has even overtaken baseball as the most popular (most revenue generating) sport in the USA. Hockey is very popular in certain regions and is of course THE sport in Canada. These 4 major sports in the USA football , baseball , basketball , and hockey and their professional leagues NFL , MLB , NBA , NHL are all very different in kind both on and off the field.
So maybe it is not the inherent character of the sport which is the reason why it is not so popular in the USA.
Or at least it might not be the most important reason.
Americans use to think of the leagues as so dominant that the champions are not just the champs of America but the World Champions. Whether this stems from an insular perspective or due to the fact that honorably competition has indeed been absent is a different question.
So when the Lakers, the Celtics of the Bulls win and NBA title they are not just the NBA champs they are “World Champions”.
The best hockey players skate around in the ice rinks of North America. NBA attracts the prime talent from Europe and elsewhere. MLB has players from Japan, Venezuela, Puerto Rico etc. while the best American players stay at home. American football is played few other places than in the US thus NFL is by definition the place for football. Thus to a certain extent it does make sense to crown the world champions when a team has won one of these leagues. But how about soccer …. Well the best soccer players play in Europe and not in the US nor in Asia for that sake. The most talented players from non-European countries who do not play in Europe already usually come from South America and play in Latin American clubs. Thus it would probably sound somewhat hollow if the champs of the MLS (major league soccer) was titled “world champions”.
Maybe the problem of the MLS is not the sport itself but the quality of the product. If the likes of Messi and Ronaldo had played not in Barcelona and Madrid but in LA and NY and if the world’s eyes would rest on the MLS and not on the Champions League or the Premier League well in that case soccer might had a far greater appeal in the US as a professional sport. But being an at best second-rate league in an international comparison while the all the major leagues boost the top talent at a global scale …. well it might not be a winning proposition in the eyes of the fan who has to dedicate limited time and money among many suitors in the arena of professional sports.

So the very popular Mexican team Chivas has set up a filial in the USA. FC Barcelona is playing with the idea as well. Should others follow suit… Would Real Madrid be able to generate significant income from a US subsidiary. Well probably not unless the US team would play with the top players and then it would not be as much due to the fact that it was “Real Madrid” but rather due to the quality of the individual players.
So the biggest prospects probably lie in including a couple of US teams in the Champions League so that the top of the top would compete in a US context both when playing at home in the US and on the road in Europe. The distance between Portugal and Kazan in Russia or between east and west coast might not be much different from New York to London. So distance should not be such a big issue. Probably more important would be time of playing the matches since sports and soccer is so dependent on TV. But the World Cup is always grappling with this issue so it could probably be resolved as well.

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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: MLS | Major League Soccer, soccer in the USA
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