Reason No. 398,285 why it's not good to have your club owned by a Petro-Oligarch

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The figure doesn't annoy me - they're a Champion's League side now.

They're essentially sponsoring themselves - that's my gripe.

Maybe they have to sponsor themselves. There's a vocal cohort who champion the right to abort 185,000 extra kids each year in the UK than 60 odd years ago, they apply a lot of media pressure on sponsors.

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European football and its 2 primary powerhouses Spain and England are at a possible bubble forming that is going to burst. Money I goitball is not sustainable on a fair basis. Anyone who thinks that money in sports is clean, good or this one better or proper club etc is sorely mistaken and a romantic. Real Madrid one of the prime "proper clubs", perhaps the original state owned club and benefactor of kick backs and inflated deals. Spain is not a financial world superpower and yet Real Madrid bought almost all the best players in the last 20 or so years at inflated prices. Long before PSG signed Neymar, Mbape, Madrid broke transfer records. Ling before City bought an entire world class 11, Madrid did. Where do they get that money. Real Madrids global appeal grew extensively by signing Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Figo, Carlos all in one team. Add Beckham, Owen, Mcmanaman who brought the global United and Liverpool supporters to LA Liga.

Italian football 80s, 90s, mafia money.

Premier League through its massive TV deals have blown apart continental Europe. Sure Leeds, Everton and done of the bottom teams in the leagues spend more than 10 or more teams in Serie A combined. How is that possible, yes England us rich nation but 60m population the numbers can only be sustained by bringing in in more greedy people who will sell it for more to the rest of the world. It will work until another offers more money to players, Saudi immediately but I also see MLS as a future rival due to the sheer financial power of USA Consumers.

Having said alot. Premier League will survive but soon football will go back to the muddy pitch days, The Vinny Jones days etc.

Genuine football fans are being bled dry but with global economic struggles around the world some things are no longer affordable.

So to an extent everyone involved is to be blamed. Supporters too for consuming it. Buying a new kit every season. High ticket prices, paying TV subs instead of bring satisfied with 1 game a Saturday of whichever teams were on. We became slaves and watched it 24/7 365.

Player earns 800k a week. Who is making that possible. Petro dollar aside. This whole thing is messed up

2 points of interest here.

1) Real have bought big over the last decade and turned a net profit of about 13 mill on transfers. This was the state of affairs at the start of last season.
It shows spending big on players is entirely sustainable, even profitable if you're operating properly.

2) the whole inflation from cfc, psg and city highlights the undervaluation of club football amongst the masses.
Each of these big net spenders, have essentially been unable to match the rise in valuations of their clubs. All 3 clubs turn a profit were they to be sold, and as cfc was when sold under Roman.
Essentially their inflation pales in significance with the inflation arising from the bosman ruling and the expanding digital market. The impact of covid showed this reach of broadcast rights, clubs could survive financially without gate receipts from fans and couldn't survive without the broadcast cash. Fans really should leverage their position for cheaper tickets against the growing digital market.

The ESL dubbed a greedy owners move, really highlighted the poor structures in place under uefa in terms of the calendar, and the really poor return clubs like LFC are getting from the game.
Lfc top annual revenue barely rose above the half billion mark.

Gotye, somebody you used to know iirc, turned down monetisation on their hit single. A 4 minute track with 2.1 billion views. Say 8 billion viewing minutes. That decision cost gotye 10 million in ad revenue from people watching the song on youtube for free.
With an ESL calendar 18-23 games a season, PL 38 games, and at least 2 games in the domestic cups... would see LFC play a minimum of 58 games a season.
5,220 minutes.

Let's say LFC have a modest 100 million fans globally, that's 5,220 minutes minimum × 100 million viewers => 522 billion viewing minutes..
At a gotye rate of monetisation that's 652.5 million in yt ad revenue. Failing to get past the first round of both domestic cups and failing to get out of the groupstages of new cl/esl.
That's more than we've earned ina single year, last I checked.

Manu, LFC, Barca and Real could more realistically see something akin to 500 million viewers of their content each.
At 500 million viewers LFC youtube ad revenue would be a little over 3.2 billion a year.

Let's stick with the lower end of 652.5 million in ad revenue from people watching LFC games for free on YT.
And let's speculate there are 10 million lfc fans willing to pay £50 a year, for some top tier commentators and the chance to get a ticket to a live game. That's half a billion. Think it's easy to see how underactualised LFC earnings are in the market today.

Football at the top tier has such global appeal, that even viewing games for free on YT the market can sustain itself.
That's ignoring corporate sponsors, merch sales, and whatever the fans(match day attendees) contribute. If fans were smart they'd have leveraged their value against the growing digital market. Lower prices for tickets as clubs realise their value through broadcast rights.

Many of the big earning players give some money to charity, and it is often luxury markets that innovate tech that comes down to the little guys, us. People seem aghast that football should be so prominent, and players paid so much.
But rarely have people ever moaned about actors and popstars earning millions, or politicians being so prominent when more often than not they're mere midwits.