Global Club Attractiveness Index: The Top Sports Clubs for Partners and Investors

Understanding the commercial opportunities that professional top sports clubs offer can be challenging. To make the best and most lucrative investment decisions, it’s critical for existing and potential partners to benchmark clubs and teams against the right metrics that indicate their attractiveness and partnership potential. This provides insight into both what constitutes a club’s success and areas that can be improved upon. It also contextualises a club’s performance within the competitive landscape in which it operates.

Calculated for over 1,000 clubs in 81 domestic leagues across eight sports in 34 countries, Euromonitor International’s Global Club Attractiveness Index provides a well-defined and comparable view of professional sports clubs, ranking them according to their commercial appeal.

The index provides a unique view of some of the largest clubs in the world, analysing key components denoting commercial success, from the physical and digital fanbase to the broader economic and demographic context. Shedding light on the exposure and value a team generates to the landscape it operates in, this index provides an objective ranking that can inform sponsorship opportunities globally.

Key insights from Euromonitor´s first index

• Football clubs account for half of all clubs in the top 20. Combined, these clubs boast nearly a billion followers on social media (933 million), illustrating the peerless position of football/soccer as a global game. Bundesliga clubs attract some of the highest attendances due to affordable tickets and strong local support. Real Madrid and FC Barcelona take leading positions in digital following, cementing their names as truly global brands.
• NFL, NBA and MLB teams claim the other half of available spots within the Index top 20. High attendances and ticket spend coupled with strong economic background determine teams from these major North American leagues to be among the most commercially attractive globally.
• Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) clubs claim the top spots in Asia Pacific with Tokyo baseball team Yomiuri Giants garnering the highest ticket spend for any club in the region. Yomiuri Giants even outperforms some MLB teams in average attendances, standing 4^th across baseball teams globally.
• Chinese and Indian clubs continue to attract high levels of investment due to vast consumer markets and large young populations. India’s cricket team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, attracts the highest average attendances (over 54,000) in Asia, also outperforming European stars such as Manchester City, Liverpool and Ajax.
• Latin American football clubs are still the unchallenged sports champions in the region. Clubs from Mexico and Argentina draw in some of the largest attendances, whereas clubs in Brazil boast large online fanbases. However, economic challenges continue to be a hindrance to growth.

A notable benefit of this type of benchmarking is the ability to revise, update and monitor performance change over time. The 2019 edition of the index will launch in summer 2019 and will incorporate international exposure metrics to foster an even deeper understanding of a club’s global reach and subsequent commercial appeal and value.

Prior to the launch of our 2019 edition, we’re offering a preview of our current global top 10 list, as well as regional rankings for Western Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Download the preview and you will automatically register to receive our 2019 edition at the end of May, which will announce our latest findings alongside more in-depth analysis and spotlights by club.