Fan enthusiasm wave jingle LaLiga coffers

Article posted by Coliseum, May 9^th, 2025

Image: San Mames Stadium, Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 3.0

Spain’s top football league – the LaLiga – posted record commercial revenue in 2023-2024 while the recurring revenue surpassed five billion euros for the first time since the pandemic though still falling shy of the pre-COVID heights.

‘Reuters’ stated that LaLiga’s 5.049 billion euros from its four traditional recurring revenue pillars (matchday, commercial, broadcasting, and the Union of European Football Association [UEFA prize money]) represents a 3.2 percent increase over the previous season riding a wave of fan enthusiasm that saw a record 16 million spectators fill the stadiums at an average of 75.4 percent of the capacity.

Madrid (Spain)-based the Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or LaLiga and officially known as the LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest level of the Spanish football league system. It is contested by 20 teams over a 38-matchday period.

Nyon (Switzerland)-based the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is one of the six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan as well as the West Asian countries of Cyprus, Armenia and Israel. The UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Since 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the FIFA and the UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.

‘Reuters’ further stated that the impressive attendance figures helped drive matchday revenue up 4.8 percent while the commercial income climbed 7.4 percent to exceed one billion euros for the second consecutive year.

Remarked Javier Tebas, LaLiga President, “After the pandemic we said it would take four or five years to recover the COVID losses and that has been the case.

While the recurring revenue was up the total revenue dipped 10 percent to 5.125 billion euros compared to last season’s inflated 5.69 billion which included half of the 1.99 billion euros from LaLiga’s deal with the private equity firm – the CVC Capital Partners.

CVC Capital Partners plc is a Jersey (British Crown dependency)-based private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately €186 billion of assets under management and approximately €157 billion in secured commitments since inception across American, European and Asian private equity, secondaries, credit funds, and infrastructure.

Added Tebas, “Taking away the effects of last-year’s levers which distorted the total numbers you can see that we are a sustainable league.”

The LaLiga projects attendance will surge to over 18 million fans next season and the league will finally break the pre-pandemic recurring revenue record of 5.065 billion euros set in 2019-2020.

Tebas also announced changes to LaLiga’s strict Financial Fair Play rules introducing a minimum wage cap of 30 percent of a club’s turnover, a move aimed at preventing financially troubled clubs like the LaLiga teams Sevilla FC and the FC Barcelona from entering the seasons with lower wage caps that have hampered their ability to register and sign new players.

The FC Barcelona and LaLiga have fought a fierce battle off the pitch in recent months regarding the registration of players Dani Olmo and Pau Victor which ended with the Spain’s National Sports Council (CSD – a Spanish Government agency responsible for promoting, planning and developing physical culture and sports activities) allowing the duo to play for the club until the end of the season.

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