The Super League could have made every soccer club in Europe rich
The proposed European Super League died a quick death earlier this week, collapsing under the weight of backlash from soccer fans and politicians.
But, man, that league could have been a bonanza — and not just for the 12 clubs that planned to be part of it.
Maybe I’m just a greedy American, but all I could think as I watched this story unfold was that every soccer club owner in Europe just missed out on an opportunity to make some serious cash coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 12 founding clubs stood to make about $400 million annually from the foundation of the Super League, roughly four times what they make from the current UEFA Champions League.
Imagine the money that other clubs in Europe stood to make if they could have gotten a slice of that pie.
Best of both worlds
Of the 12 founding Super League clubs, six play in the English Premier League, three play in La Liga (Spain) and three play in Serie A (Italy). And the Super League’s plans didn’t actually call for those 12 clubs to leave their domestic leagues!
The Super League would not have been a direct competitor to any domestic league. It would have been a mid-week competition (EPL, La Liga and Serie A play games on weekends), so clubs would have competed in both the Super League and their domestic leagues.
But for some reason, the other clubs in the domestic leagues threatened to kick those clubs — their most popular clubs — out of their leagues!
If I had been the other clubs in the EPL, La Liga and Serie A, I wouldn’t have threatened to kick the Super League teams out. I would have kept them in my league to keep my weekend product strong, and I would have fought for a piece of that lucrative Super League pie.
I would have pushed for each Super League club in my domestic league to pay, say, a $50 million dollar tax to compete in the Super League and maintain a spot in the domestic league. For the EPL, that would have meant $300 million (6*$50M) to disperse to the remaining clubs in the league. That’s on top of the current EPL TV contract, worth $80 million annually.
Who doesn’t benefit from that?
Instead, the other EPL clubs would have rather kicked out their most popular opponents, received no share of the Super League revenue, and destroyed the value of their existing TV contact.
What comes next?
On the one hand, I commend the people of England, Spain and Italy, and the other clubs owners, for stopping the Super League from happening. Tradition prevailed over greed, and that’s an admirable feat.
That never happens in America, where we’re used to greed ruining wonderful things like the Major League Baseball regular season and the Mizzou-Kansas rivalry.
But on the other hand, all of european soccer left a ton of money on the table by not embracing the Super League concept and finding a way to profit off of it.
It’s only a matter of time before another investor comes along offering the most-popular european clubs a big payday for a new venture. And next time, the money might be so good that no amount of backlash can stop those elite clubs from cashing in.
When that happens, the domestic leagues should embrace it and fight for a cut of the revenue, or they really may be left for dead.
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