Giant leap: Paul Pogba rejoined Manchester United for £89-million in August. Photo: Carl Recine Livepic/Reuters
This year money flooded into sport faster than ever before and flooded out in the shape of fatter salaries for the stars, who have become multimillion dollar business brands.
Paul Pogba’s world-record transfer to Manchester United set the tone for a year of big-money deals. The French 23-year-old was handed wealth beyond the dreams of most of his Old Trafford fans.
But even Pogba has a long way to go to catch up with gold-plated stars such as Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and his Real Madrid rival Cristiano Ronaldo, the world’s highest-paid athlete, according to Forbes, who banks just short of €1.6-million a week in salary and endorsements.
Pogba’s five-year contract to join United may have raised eyebrows among football fans and critics but top-flight managers and sports business insiders had already priced in mega transfer inflation.
The explosion of TV rights made the Pogba contract possible, flooding the coffers of the English Premier League, making a mockery of economic austerity and the jobless queues.
And the tide of high finance in sport did not stop there. Television income rose 40% for Germany’s Bundesliga, the United States’s NBA enjoyed a vintage financial year and Formula One motor racing attracted a multibillion-dollar US takeover bid.
Three years after Welshman Gareth Bale set a world-record transfer figure of €101-million for his move to Real Madrid, Pogba upped the ante with his €105-million transfer to Manchester in August despite failing to set sparks flying for France in Euro 2016.
Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said the moment the €9.6-billion domestic TV deal covering 2016 to 2019 was signed between the Premier League and Sky Sports and BT Sport, “transfer values and salaries were going to go up”.
Star power
The result was not long in coming. Premier League clubs spent €1.38-billion during the 2016 summer transfer market window, 34% up on the previous year.
The British game’s star power also spilled over into foreign markets, where broadcast rights sell to the highest bidder. The biggest deal to date was signed in November with Chinese video-streaming service PPTV for €600-million.
Elsewhere in Europe the Bundesliga cashed in hugely with a TV deal worth €3.48-billion over the next three years, a near 40% jump on the past year.
If economic hardship tightened the purse strings in some other parts of Europe, the cash flowed thick and fast in basketball in the US, where TV income tripled and the sport generated global revenue of €4.8-billion with operating profit of €866-million, a record, according to Forbes.
At the same time, NBA clubs saw their value rise by an average 13% with the New York Knicks topping the financial league at €2.89-billion.
With TV income up sharply since last year — and slightly higher than Premier League levels — NBA clubs are pushing up salaries, with LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers seeing his €22-million paycheque boosted to €2.97-million for the 2016/2017 season.
Formula One was also a big winner in the financial stakes. The sport deemed to be in severe decline still managed to attract the high rollers with US firm Liberty Media, run by billionaire John Malone, buying out F1’s parent company in a deal that values the sport at €7.7-billion.
Formula One is gambling on gaining more exposure worldwide, including in the US, hoping to generate an even wider revenue stream in the future. Logically, that will translate as even more money in the bank for the big stars. — AFP