Did you know that the Premier League makes more money
than more than 50 entire countries?
In Britain it makes more than some of the biggest supermarket chains nationwide.
However much we might prefer to think otherwise, football is a business, that's a fact,
and within the industry, the Premier League is the indisputable leader.
But how big is the Premier League when it comes to finances?
How important is it to the British economy?
Let's put this into perspective
and discover the real economic impact of the Premier League.
The GVA, gross value added,
is the amount that the company or sector contributes to the GDP of a country,
and according to an analysis carried out by Ernst and Young Financial Services,
the Premier League made a total GVA contribution of £7.6 billion
to the UK GDP in the 2019-20 season.
Yes, that's the 2019-20 season
when the Premier League, like the rest of the world,
was hit by COVID 19 halfway through.
So those figures could have been even bigger.
Let's have a closer look at those numbers.
Of that £7.6 billion,
£3.9 billion was generated through direct impact,
coming directly from the Premier League and its clubs,
like matchday and commercial revenue, employees, broadcasting and sponsors.
£1.5 billion came from indirect impact,
which is all the economic activity generated through club
and the Premier League supply chains as a result of the direct impact,
like the construction industry or the hospitality sector.
The last £2.1 billion was from induced impact:
all the production and employment generated from the consumption of goods and services
like TV licences or TV engineers.
That seems like a lot of money, right?
But is it really that much? Let's see.
In 2020-21, the UK GDP was approximately £2.2 trillion.
The manufacturing sector, for example, contributed 18% of that total.
Real estate represented 11.5% and agriculture 0.6%.
Another of those sectors is sport and entertainment,
which the Premier League falls into.
So how much did this single organisation
contribute to the total GDP of the country?
0.33%.
That's a little bit less than BP, one of the biggest British companies
that represents 0.42% of the national economy,
but much more than Tesco, which comes to 0.18%, or AstraZeneca.
In 2020, a big year for them, AstraZeneca contributed
0.15% of the UK GDP.
If we compare it to other big football leagues, the Premier League leads the race.
The Bundesliga generates roughly €5.1 billion per year,
and that represents 0.2% of the German economy.
La Liga, on the other hand, contributes 0.1% of the Spanish GDP
with an estimated €1.047 billion.
The Premier League is a company
and like any company that does business in the UK, it pays tax.
In the 2019-20 season, for example, its business
meant a total of £3.6 billion in tax to the British government.
That was enough to pay 2.5% of the total NHS budget in 2020.
What are you thinking?
It doesn't look like a lot?
If you were expecting something bigger, hang on.
Let's zoom out and get a wider view on this matter.
This number here is the global GDP in 2021:
The Premier League alone
contributes 0.01% of that number.
This is a list of countries by GDP according to the International Monetary Fund.
The USA goes first, then China, but let's scroll down.
Position 149, Tajikistan, with a total of £8.104 billion.
If the Premier League was a country, it would be right there
in the 150th position currently occupied by Guyana with a GDP of £7.395 billion.
It could be called 'Premierland' or any other name you like,
but if the Premier League was an actual sovereign state,
it would be the 150th biggest economy in the world,
on top of countries like Andorra, San Marino and the Maldives.
Its GDP would be 158 times bigger than Tuvalu, the last country on the list.
Its economy would be a little bit more than half of Malta's
and a little bit less than half of Iceland's.
Compared to the US one: about 2263 times smaller.
Still a way to go.
That's how big the biggest football business in the world is.
Bigger than some traditional companies and even bigger than some countries.
Without any doubt, an important player in the UK economy.