It will come as no surprise to learn that the world’s greatest economy is home to the world’s biggest earning sporting codes though you may be shocked to learn how much ‘amateur’ college athletics can generate in the land of the free.
On the home front, while Australian rules football can boast of putting on the globe’s most attended professional team sports event of 2013 it brings in less than five per cent of the income of the world’s leading code. And while the NRL may be chuffed with the recent five-year $1 billion rights deal, this is less than the broadcast revenue generated a single conference of 14 US colleges.
The National Football League leads the world when it comes to raking in revenue, earning over $9.5 billion in 2013.
So how does a domestic sport with a largely domestic audience attract more money than the GDP of 60 odd countries?
Television.
American Football is the king of American television. In 2013 the code pulled in almost $4.5 billion from the sale of broadcast rights alone, and from 2014 this figure will exceed $6.5 billion. Add in merchandise, ticket sales and other lesser revenue streams and the NFL will take in north of $11 billion this year.
That’s why the Cleveland Browns, an underperforming team from a city mired in recession, is worth more than global football powerhouses Chelsea, Manchester City or AC Milan.
And it is the consumption power of the American middle-class that places Major League Baseball second on the list of revenue raising codes. Exact revenue figures are tricky to obtain, but it’s safe to assume the MLB revenue will exceed $8.5 billion for 2013 and, thanks to a revised broadcast deal, that number should approach $10 billion in 2014 and beyond. The New York Yankees are responsible for earning more than five per cent of MLB revenue and it is this earning power that sees the club valued in excess of $2.7 billion.
Our next entrant is not the organising body of a single sport, but the revenue raised by America’s top-tier college sports programs is so astounding that they deserve a place on our list. In 2013 the 123 members of the NCAA Football Bowl subdivision raised close to $8.5 billion. The Texas Longhorns alone netted more than $175 million, including approximately $65 million in ticket sales. It’s little wonder that there are moves afoot for college athletes to unionise in a bid to obtain a chunk of the money made from their efforts on the field.
Moving away from the USA, the English Premier League is the world’s highest grossing football competition. In 2013/14 the EPL is forecast to exceed $5.5 billion in revenue. Broadcast fees make up approximately half of EPL revenue with ticket sales and commercial/sponsorship arrangements contributing an even split of the remainder. The EPL’s most valuable club is the publicly listed Manchester United, with a $3 billion market capitalisation and 2012/13 revenue of almost $600 million.
The Formula One group of companies are incorporated in multiple jurisdictions, and sourcing the exact revenue generated by the sport is harder than getting Sebastian Vettel to obey team orders. Delta 2, the highest level F1 entity that publicly reports income, declared revenue of $1.4 billion for 2013. This revenue relates to the two major income streams for the sport, namely broadcast rights and race fees (fees paid by cities to host each race). The companies that generate income from trackside sponsorship and corporate hospitality/merchandising do not file public reports, but it is understood they contributed a further $425 million in 2013, leaving motorsport’s peak franchise with total revenue exceeding $1.8 billion. Close to half of this amount was distributed to teams in prizemoney.
Australia’s highest grossing sporting body is the AFL, which recorded revenue for 2013 of $446 million. The league’s largest revenue stream is the $1.253 billion five-year broadcast deal that was struck with Foxtel and Channel Seven in 2011. The NRL recorded gross revenue of $314.3 million in 2013, 70 per cent of which was derived from broadcast revenue and sponsorship, with ticket sales accounting for the bulk of the remainder.
Of our other major sports, Cricket Australia recorded revenue of $164 million and Tennis Australia $186 million. The Football Federation of Australia stands alone among major Australian sporting codes in refusing to release financial figures.
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