The Highest Paying Cup Competitions in Football

In today’s world, money plays a huge part in every major sport, including football. It is one of the most lucrative industries in the world in terms of both business and entertainment. Some of the well-renowned footballers like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who are regarded ‘two of the best’ at the moment, are millionaires and the sport has given them so much over the course of their careers, be it through the endorsement deals or the high wages paid by their own respective clubs.

We all know competitive European football leagues are watched by fans from every corner of the world be it Bundesliga, Serie A, Eredivisie, Ligue 1 or La Liga. England’s top-flight Premier League is one of the most popular football leagues in the world and it recently signed a massive domestic TV rights deal which is around £5.136 billion for three years from 2016 to 2019.

TV deals increase prize money

An additional of £3 billion is expected from foreign deals which make it a grand total of £8 billion. And this money will be distributed yearly for three years to Premier League clubs as prize money plus TV money.

With this new deal, regardless of the final position in the league, rock bottom teams are still likely to take home around £100 million for a season while the champions will be awarded £150m to £160m depending on various bonuses. So if we take various European leagues into account, these are the highest paying competitions in the world with a massive prize money pool.

We have a look at the top ten football competitions, both tournaments and leagues, which has the highest prize money and where the winning team gets the most money with the inclusion of their TV rights money share and bonuses incurred from the competition.

Surprisingly, La Liga tops the chart and two of the powerhouses in the league – Barcelona and Real Madrid – have their own TV deals with the sponsors which has resulted in a huge gap between the money earned by them and the other 18 Spanish clubs in the top flight.

Luis Enrique and his men were rewarded with total prize money of €140 million, per live sports reviews, after they won the league title last season. However, their rivals from the Spanish capital were awarded the same amount despite finishing second in the 2014/15 season.

According to Totalsportek, last season’s Premier League winners Chelsea bagged almost the same figure as Barcelona and Madrid at the end of the season. The prize money awarded to the English clubs is generated from the broadcasting rights sale and this will be the second year of the 2013-16 TV rights deal which is worth around £5.178 billion in total if we combine both domestic and overseas TV deals.

UEFA Champions League, Europe’s most elite club competition, is third on the list and the Blaugrana side took home a total of €61 million from their triumph in 2015 at Berlin, as per the reports on Mirror. Each team was entitled to a minimum of €8.6m for participating in the competition. The teams were then rewarded with €1m for a win and €500,000 for a draw.

Progression to the round of 16 saw the teams earn an additional bonus of €3.5m. The figures increased by €3.9m for reaching the quarter-finals and €4.9m for reaching the semi-finals. The Catalan club bagged €10.5m for winning the final in Berlin while runners-up Juventus were given €6.5m.

Most lucrative football tournaments

# Event Winners Prize Money 1 La Liga (2014/15) FC Barcelona €140 million 2 Premier League (2014/15) Chelsea €139 million 3 UEFA Champions League

(2014/15) FC Barcelona €61 million 4 Ligue 1 (2014/15) Paris Saint-Germain €44.6 million 5 Bundesliga (2014/15) FC Bayern Munich €38.31 million 6 FIFA World Cup (2014) Germany €28.14 million 7 European Championship (2012) Spain €23 million 8 UEFA Europa League

(2014/15) Sevilla €8.17 million 9 FIFA Club World Cup

(2014) Real Madrid €6.45 million 10 Copa America (2015) Chile €2.67 million 11 FA Cup (2015) Arsenal €2.63 million