2023-12-09 18:00:00
Before the pandemic hit, European football was experiencing its golden age: each audiovisual cycle injected more money into the system, globalization attracted new sponsors and advertisers, and all this fueled greater spending on sports signings and salaries. But Covid happened and, to the long and slow recovery that an illness usually entails, other ailments were added that perhaps could be perceived, but that now hurt a little more. New forms of entertainment have been added to the growing offer of digital entertainment, but above all the general feeling in the audiovisual sector that football, and sport in general, is no longer capable of attracting more customers to pay television. of those that already exist. And that helps to understand the point of maturity, if not deflation, that European football television rights have experienced in recent contests.
The last great example is that of the Premier League. Nobody disputes its leadership as an entertainment product, with six clubs that start each year on a certain level of equality – here we have already talked about the damage of the distribution in LaLiga and the reigning duopoly. And yet, in the market with which it marks distances from the rest of the world, it has also shown signs of exhaustion. The Premier announced this week a 4% year-on-year revaluation in its annual income from broadcasts in the United Kingdom, but let’s go to the fine print.
Unlike the other major leagues, the British championship has never sold the usual 380 games in a season with 20 teams. That is the ace up his sleeve that he has played in this contest, in which he has scored 70 more matches in the different lots. Furthermore, and in line with what LaLiga did last year, it has extended the duration of the next cycle from three to four years. These two elements have been capital and, although it is true that the economic value of each match has decreased compared to today, it is no less true that any revaluation obtained goes directly to the coffers of the clubs that already played those matches. In addition, it is an improvement in the country of origin greater than that of the 1% that scratched Javier Tebas giving DAZN entry into the game and the setbacks experienced in Germany, Italy and France.
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Another interesting detail is that Amazon has decided not to even present an offer for any of the lots after six years with 20 games per campaign around Christmas. And it is because it reflects that the logic with which the technological giants operate in their trial-error with sport is very different from the classic ones of pay television. If they have already captured all the customers they intended to retain later with their ‘ecommerce’, why continue paying for football? And if that is the same question that telecoms and platforms that today pay hundreds of millions of euros a year will ask themselves, what one wonders is: will it be from 2030 when the leagues will directly sell their own OTT?
The answer is not simple and the consequences in terms of the revenue model are not minor. A greater risk and the comfort of knowing that the correction could be automatic in salaries if the migration is done by all the leagues in unison.
Walking to Saudi Arabia
Carlo Ancelotti He is a wise man. “I would walk away,” he said this Friday when he was asked if he would also go to Saudi Arabia for 500 million euros. The Real Madrid coach’s reflection puts society as a whole in front of the mirror and serves to question those who criticize an athlete going to the Gulf country or to a project financed by it in exchange for multimillion-dollar sums. We would probably all pack our bags and, on foot, Carletto, or by plane we would leave with our eyes closed for that pension that will cover the following generations of these athletes. However, it also demands that these athletes not cheat alone and be honest about their motivations.
None of the footballers who have gone to Saudi Arabia are going to generate a real impact in that country, nor are they going to elevate their domestic championship to the world elite no matter how much they insist on the discourse about the quality of the matches. Even though there has been until 2034 with the culmination of bringing the World Cup there. And it won’t make other sports grow in the long term either. Jon Rahm, The last to succumb to joining LIV Golf, he admitted that the great opportunity is for him and his family. There are 500 million, and my question is whether the good for the sport in the long term would not be to use that money rather to promote the discipline and not to leave those who try to make their sport sustainable at a competitive disadvantage.
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