Leicester title may be worth £150m – report
Leicester City could make £150 million as the result of their Premier League title success, according to analysis by sports data and marketing firm Repucom.
Leicester, confirmed as champions after Tottenham’s draw at Chelsea on Monday, could earn £90m in prize money for topping the table via the Premier League’s “Merit Payment” system. The Foxes earned £71.6m in prize money last season, when they finished 14th.
They will also play in the Champions League’s group phase next season, guaranteeing at least six games in the competition. Repucom’s analysis says that group stage fees, a proportion of the competition’s market pool and a participation bonus will provide a further £33m in total, with around £3m potentially available for performance bonuses.
Featuring in the Champions League will also increase match-day revenues through gate receipts and hospitality, which could be worth between £10m and £15m. It will also enhance the club’s marketability overseas, with the prospect of a larger global fan base and better sponsorship deals.
Television audiences for Leicester games have also increased significantly over the course of the season — 23 percent globally and 29 percent in the UK — and the report says: “As a result, media values have jumped by 30 percent globally whilst in the US they have grown by over 70 percent.”
Spencer Nolan, head of consulting at Repucom UK and Ireland, told the BBC it was vital that they take advantage of their growing global fan base.
“In the mid to long term, the growth in fan base remains central to realising the club’s full potential as a commercial entity and, whilst it is too early to really evaluate the rapidly growing fan bases we are starting to see across Asia for example, social media provides us an opportunity to start to quantify this surge,” he said.
