Broadcasting revenues and sporting success in European football: Evidence from the Big Five leagues

Abstract

This paper examines the association between broadcasting revenues and sporting success in Europe’s Big Five football leagues (England, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France), and in particular how the distribution and allocation of broadcasting revenues in Europe’s elite leagues are associated with the clubs’ domestic and international sporting success. The study makes use of a large hand-collected dataset comprising 8244 observations from 160 different clubs playing in one of these five leagues during the seven seasons from 2010 to 2017. The results indicate that the use of a uniform broadcasting revenue distribution model, which gives all clubs a relatively similar share of the pie, may increase domestic league competition, which in turn makes it tougher for one or two teams to dominate the rest. At the same time, there are some indications that a uniform broadcasting model is negatively associated with the clubs’ international sporting success. The use of a more top-heavy revenue distribution model, which leaves a smaller share for the worst-performing clubs, seems to enable the top clubs to retain both domestic and international sporting success.