Commercial income has become the largest revenue stream for Europe’s ten highest-earning clubs, and it has grown mainly by replacing broadcasting.
Among the top 10, commercial revenue rose from 32% of operating revenue in 2008/09 to 49% in 2024/25, according to The Evolution of Club Revenues in European Football, the report by Football Benchmark and World Football Summit. It had already overtaken broadcasting, which includes UEFA revenues, by 2018/19 (44% against 40%). Broadcasting has since fallen to 32%.
The shift happened in two stages. Up to 2018/19, commercial’s gain came almost entirely at matchday’s expense, which fell from 27% to 16%, while broadcasting eased only slightly, from 42% to 40%. Since 2021/22, the pattern has reversed: broadcasting has dropped from 38% to 32%, funding gains in both commercial and matchday.
The wider market of 700 top-division clubs took roughly a decade longer to make the same crossover. Commercial revenue only overtook combined broadcasting and UEFA revenue there in 2022/23, even though it grew faster than either of the other two streams throughout the period (7.0% a year, against €6.9bn to €12.6bn between 2014/15 and 2023/24).
Broadcasting itself has also changed shape. UEFA distributions have grown faster than domestic broadcasting (2.1x against 1.5x since 2014/15), so European competition now makes up a larger share of clubs’ broadcasting income than a decade ago, even though domestic deals still add more revenue in absolute terms.
Matchday has fully recovered from Covid but remains the smallest of the three streams. It fell from €3.3bn to €0.5bn between 2018/19 and 2020/21, a period in which commercial revenue, built on multi-year contracts, held steady, and it has since climbed back to €4.4bn in 2023/24, still below both broadcasting and commercial revenue.
The Evolution of Club Revenues in European Football: How growth has reshaped the economics of the game, the report by Football Benchmark and World Football Summit, covers this shift alongside the rest of the picture: how European club revenues have grown 146% in fifteen years to over €30bn, how that growth has concentrated in the Premier League and the biggest clubs, and how it has translated into record club valuations at the top of the market.
Download the full report. HERE