→ A Marte report on the business of football
2027
Football Business Outlook
Where the industry stands in 2026, and what to start working on now to be ready for 2027/28
→ Chapter 01
Record revenue, growing losses
Demand for football has never been higher. Profitability has not followed.
European football market, 2024/25, up 6%
Big five aggregate pre-tax loss, €0.8bn worse than 2023/24
European football generated €40.2 billion in 2024/25, up 6 percent.
Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance 2026 · official
The big five leagues lost €1.5 billion before tax, €0.8 billion worse than the year before.
Deloitte ARFF 2026 · official
The Premier League's pre-tax loss went from €158 million to €1.1 billion in one season. Wages reached 65 percent of revenue.
Deloitte ARFF 2026 · official
In FY2024, 38 percent of Europe's top-division clubs were profitable: the first return to operating profitability in five years still left 62 percent in the red.
UEFA European Club Finance and Investment Landscape, Feb 2026 · official
We didn't touch it so far because we still don't get our hands around the business case.
→ Where the money comes from
Matchday is the smallest stream and the fastest-growing
For the fourth year running, and the only stream that grew in all five big leagues.
Where the top 20 clubs' revenue comes from, 2024/25
EUR bn; growth versus 2023/24. Source: Deloitte Football Money League 2026 · official
Wages as a share of revenue, big five leagues, 2024/25
Ligue 1 spends four fifths of its revenue on wages; the Bundesliga barely half.
Percent of revenue. Source: Deloitte ARFF 2026 · official
→ The thesis
Where growth has moved
Football generates extraordinary demand. The next phase of growth belongs to organizations that can:
- 1Know the fan by nameCh. 03
- 2Run the venue every day of the yearCh. 03
- 3Sell rights to many buyers rather than oneCh. 04
- 4Sit where the format of competition is decidedCh. 05
- 5Own rather than rent the intelligence in the organizationCh. 06
- 6Build the women's game as a product of its ownCh. 07
At many clubs, 60 to 76 percent of fans remain anonymous to the club.
Chapter 03 · speaker claims, WFS 2026
Atlético de Madrid reports revenue above €500 million without player sales, on 165,000 paying members and more than 280 non-football events a year.
Chapter 03 · speaker claim, WFS 2026
The single broadcast contract is being cut into smaller pieces and sold to buyers who did not exist five years ago: players, creators, platforms and rights holders' own channels.
Chapter 04
In July 2026 UEFA's 55 member associations threatened a boycott over a private-equity vehicle inside FIFA. FIFA dropped the plan four days after announcing it.
Chapter 05 · Reuters, CNBC (press); FIFA (official)
Clubs renting generic intelligence are training someone else's model with their own knowledge, and AI labs are already offering to buy it.
Chapter 06 · speaker claim, WFS 2026
Women's football draws an audience that overlaps with the men's game by less than 10 percent, and needs its own calendar, research and commercial strategy.
Chapter 07 · speaker claim, WFS 2026
→ Chapter 02
Capital: from whether to on what terms
Football has become an investable asset class for institutional capital. Investors now ask on what terms, against which cash flows, with what protection.
Investment transactions in European clubs in 2025, an all-time high
Controlling stakes acquired in top divisions, one third by North American investors
Big five clubs with private equity, venture or private debt backing
Big five clubs with a multi-club stake, from 41.7% a year earlier
UEFA ECFIL, Feb 2026 · official; PitchBook, 2025/26 · press estimate. A transaction count is not a club count.
The pool capital draws on
Global private credit, assets under management, €tn
Preqin, via Brookfield · press estimate, converted to euro at the report's 2025 rate.
Who is buying
Big five clubs, 2025/26. Exposure, not ownership: a minority investor or a loan counts.
PitchBook via CNBC · press estimate
Revenue multiples: European football and US basketball
Revenue multiples in transactions and estimates, 2016 to 2026
Sportico, Football Benchmark, Forbes and CNBC · press estimates; hollow dots are speaker claims from WFS Madrid.
→ Chapter 03
The identified fan and the 365-day venue
At many clubs, 60 to 76 percent of fans are anonymous to the club: one of the largest unpriced assets in the industry.
“60% of the fans in many clubs across the world are not identified.” The next day another panel put it at 76 percent: “These fans celebrate, co-create, cheer and consume, but that behavior is invisible.”
Luis Ureta, Sportian; Jenna Trabulus, Captain Ventures · WFS 2026 · speaker claims
At the Intuit Dome, with about 95 percent biometric enrollment and frictionless entry, food and beverage consumption rose about five times and commerce about 30 percent.
Sportian · WFS 2026 · speaker claim
Angers SCO, with Ligue 1's smallest budget, had nearly a thousand fewer people in the stadium and 33 percent more revenue after adopting revenue management built for airlines and railways.
Angers SCO · WFS 2026 · speaker claim
A stadium judged on days of use
Atlético de Madrid's Metropolitano, this year's program: one square per event
Atlético de Madrid · WFS 2026 · speaker claim. The 115-hectare district around the stadium opens in December 2026.
→ Chapter 04
Rights: from one contract to a marketplace
The plateau in broadcast rights was diagnosed in October 2025 and transacted in September 2026. The open question is who the new buyers are.
Domestic rights: what each league got at its last renewal
Change in per-season value against the previous cycle
League announcements · official, and press where noted. Ligue 1 then lost its broadcaster in 2025 and launched Ligue 1+.
Views distribute, minutes monetize
Federation World Cup channels on YouTube, by format
KNOT / You First, Industry Stage, 16 Sep 2026 · speaker claim. Lime: short-form; black: long-form.
World Cup 2026 on one platform
unique users watched World Cup-related videos on YouTube during the tournament
new subscribers to FIFA's own channel, with about 4 billion views
reported peak concurrent viewers on the creator channel CazéTV, Brazil against Scotland
YouTube Official Blog, Jul 2026 · company reported; CazéTV · company reported
→ Chapter 05
Governance: the fight over the format
Capital has moved from acquiring clubs to trying to shape the competition itself. Format and regulatory risk now belong alongside sporting risk in any valuation.
Five days that stopped the plan, and the road to Rabat
FIFA announces FIFA Forward Enterprise: about 20% of a new entity offered to investors, up to €3.7bn at a reported €17.7bn valuation.
UEFA's 55 member associations vote to boycott FIFA competitions if the plan proceeds. Concacaf rejects it the same day.
FIFA states the plan will not proceed.
UEFA suspends the boycott threat after written assurances. Several federations withdraw support for the incumbent president.
Nomination deadline for the FIFA presidency: support of five member associations required.
77th FIFA Congress, Rabat: election by majority of valid votes.
Reuters, CNBC, Al Jazeera, Euronews · press; FIFA · official. Information cut-off 18 September 2026.
The thought that private equity could be determining decisions about our game filled me with horror.
→ Chapter 06
AI: owners and renters
In eleven months AI went from a word that needed justifying to a budget line that finance directors question. Clubs that own structured data can plug in any model.
Near-universal adoption, contested value
AI in sports organizations, 2026. Survey of 160+ senior executives.
SportsPro and Sportradar, Global SportsTech Report 2026 · press survey
Fans use AI more and trust it less
IBM 2026 Sports Survey with Morning Consult · company reported
We spent millions of pounds on tokens and I can't see one impact on the business.
→ Chapter 07
Women's football: asset or cause
Every source of capital agrees on direction and disagrees on price. Both positions are correct about different markets.
Women's Super League aggregate revenue
€m; growth of 34% and 39% in consecutive seasons, as reported in sterling
Deloitte ARFF 2025 and 2026 · official; converted to euro at the report's 2025 rate.
What it costs to join the NWSL
Reported expansion fees, €m, against average club revenue
ESPN, The Athletic via CBS Sports, Sportico · press reports; the league does not publish fees.
Two products, one game
“Very, very little overlap, like less than 10%.” Michele Kang · WFS 2026 · speaker claim
→ Chapter 09
Six propositions for 2027/28
Testable calls that follow from the findings. Each one names the signal that will prove it right or wrong, and we score them, in public, in the 2028 edition. The full argument for each is in the report.
- 1
A top-tier European club will complete a financing secured on data or IP
Signal to watch collateral disclosed in club bond, private placement or loan documentation.
Chapter 02 ↑ - 2
Multi-club ownership will record further exits and at least one regulatory intervention
Signal to watch UEFA club-ownership decisions and announced disposals.
Chapter 02 ↑ - 3
More clubs will disclose identified-fan or CRM figures to investors
Signal to watch identified-fan share reported in 2026/27 accounts and investor materials.
Chapter 03 ↑ - 4
A rights holder will displace a broadcaster in at least one territory
Signal to watch direct-to-platform deals replacing a territorial license.
Chapter 04 ↑ - 5
Format and regulatory risk will become an explicit line in valuations
Signal to watch competition-format and calendar scenarios cited in valuations, rating reports and deal disclosures.
Chapter 05 ↑ - 6
The first club will report an AI impact or knowledge-asset metric to its board or members
Signal to watch AI or data-asset metrics in annual reports and members' assemblies.
Chapter 06 ↑
→ Our research
The business of football, read by operators.
Our first annual Outlook reads what changed in the industry, and what to do about it before 2027/28. Ten chapters, the appendices and every source.