The 'Other' 90 Minutes: Why Commercial Revenue Isn't Just 'Nice to Have'—It's the New League Table
As executives in the football world, we’re all, to some degree, obsessed with tables. The league table. The “form” table. And, of course, the revenue table.
For decades, the business model was a “three-legged stool,” right? Matchday, Broadcast, and Commercial. We all said they were equally important. But I don’t think that’s true anymore.
In fact, I’m convinced the last few years—especially the gut-punch of the pandemic—didn’t just test that model. It broke it.
When the stadiums fell silent, the “Matchday” leg of the stool was sawed off overnight. And with scheduling chaos, “Broadcast” started to look wobbly. What was the only leg left standing, and in many cases, the only one that grew?
Commercial.
This isn’t just a hunch. It’s the central story in all the big financial reports. The most recent Deloitte report laid it bare. The world’s top clubs generated a record €11.2 billion. And the largest slice of that pie? At €4.9 billion, commercial revenue was, for the second year running, the biggest income source of all.
This changes everything.
From ‘Sponsors’ to ‘Partners’: The Big Shift
Let’s be honest, “commercial” used to be a simpler game. You’d find a kit sponsor, sell some ad hoardings, and call it a day. The goal was visibility.
Today? The goal is integration.
We’re not looking for “sponsors” anymore. We’re looking for partners. And that’s a massive, fundamental shift in thinking.
A “sponsor” just wants their logo seen. A “partner” wants to be woven into the fabric of the club and the fan experience.
Think about the new categories of partners we’re all dealing with:
– Data Partners: They don’t just want ads; they want to provide the “live stats” in the stadium and on the app.
– Tech Partners: They’re not just sponsoring; they’re building the club’s new NFT platform or its AR stadium tour.
– Lifestyle Partners: They’re co-creating fashion lines, not just stamping a logo on a polo shirt.
This new ecosystem is more resilient because it’s not tied to 90 minutes on a Saturday. It’s 24/7, 365, and digital-first. While clubs have mastered traditional sponsorships, a new ecosystem of digital-first commercial partnerships, from data analytics providers to regulated ltbet platforms, is adding new, resilient revenue streams that were untapped five years ago. This is where the real growth is.
It’s about turning the club from a football team into a global brand. And a brand’s value isn’t just in its performance; it’s in its reach.
Benchmarking the Right Thing
This new reality means we, as directors and executives, have to change how we measure success. Winning on the pitch is still, and always will be, the engine. But the business success… that’s about commercial innovation.
Are we really benchmarking our commercial operations effectively?
It’s no longer good enough to just compare our commercial income to our nearest rival. We have to dig deeper. This is where platforms like the footballbenchmark become less of a “report” and more of an essential “dashboard.” We need to be able to analyze the financial and operational performance of hundreds of clubs, not just our domestic competitors.
The sports industry, and football in particular, is at an inflection point. The old models of revenue generation are proving increasingly fragile and capped. We must move beyond the comfortable metrics of the past and begin asking the disruptive, difficult questions that challenge the core assumptions of our commercial operations.
The New Commercial Due Diligence: Harder Questions
A club’s financial health can no longer be measured solely by league position or gate receipts. The focus must shift to granular, comparative, and future-proof metrics: What is our revenue-per-fan, and how does that stack up against a club of similar stature in a different league or even a different sport?
This metric moves the conversation away from simple attendance numbers and focuses on the true value extracted from each individual relationship. A lower-league club with a high revenue-per-fan may be commercially healthier than a top-tier club with a massive but passively engaged fanbase. Benchmarking should look globally, not just domestically, identifying best practices in fan monetisation from the NBA, NFL, or even Formula 1.
How effective is our social media engagement, and are we monetizing it as well as a non-sporting brand with a similar follower count?
Follower counts are a vanity metric. True effectiveness lies in conversion rates—converting a view into a data point, an engagement into a sale, or a follower into a ticket buyer. If a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand can leverage a 5 million follower count into a massive direct-to-consumer (D2C) revenue stream, a club with a similar following should be able to do the same through merchandise, digital collectibles, and unique content subscriptions.
Are we diversified? If our main “partner” (say, in the automotive or airline industry) hits a global recession, does our entire commercial model collapse?
Over-reliance on a single industry vertical, or a small number of major partners, creates a systemic risk. Robust commercial models require sector diversification (Tech, Gaming, Financial Services, CPG, Energy) and geographical diversification. Furthermore, clubs must cultivate their own direct revenue streams (D2C retail, digital media assets) that are less susceptible to the cyclical nature of traditional corporate sponsorship.
The Brutal Lesson of Fragility
The global pandemic served as a brutal, unambiguous lesson in the fragility of “legacy” revenue streams:
– Matchday Revenue: This stream is fundamentally capped by the physical size of the stadium and is exposed to health crises, security threats, and transport issues. While premium seating and dynamic pricing can optimise it, the ceiling is immutable.
– Broadcast Revenue: While massive, this revenue is a (very large) slice of a pie that the club doesn’t control. It is negotiated by leagues and federations, dependent on global media rights cycles, and vulnerable to changes in viewing habits (cord-cutting, shift to streaming). Clubs are passive beneficiaries, not active drivers, of this income.
The New League Table: Commercial Revenue
Commercial revenue is the singular stream where a club has the most control. It is the direct output of internal strategy, innovation, and an intimate understanding of the modern fan’s digital and consumption habits.
The Innovation Stream: Success here relies on embracing new digital-first categories. This includes leveraging data science for hyper-personalised marketing, creating bespoke fan tokens and digital memberships, and aggressively entering the esports and gaming landscapes. It requires a mindset that treats the club’s intellectual property (IP)—its badge, its players, its history—as a portfolio of licensable digital assets.
The Sustainable Health Guarantee: Unlike the finite limits of matchday and the external volatility of broadcast, commercial revenue offers genuine scalability. It is the only income stream capable of delivering the long-term, sustainable financial health required to compete at the highest level without relying on unpredictable external investments or debt.
The ‘other’ 90 minutes—the commercial ones—are where the real game is now being won. The clubs that treat their commercial department as a central performance unit, driving innovation and diversification, will be the ones that secure their competitive futures.
