Knowing the industry as I do, I’m all too aware that some perceive financial benchmarking as potentially putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Why should I want to share information about my club which could be useful to others?

Indeed, the single biggest concern that we face in our conversations with Leagues and their clubs is that of the nature of the data we collect, and whether clubs will be willing to share that information. 

This concern over sharing potentially sensitive data is something that I have experienced first hand in my commercial roles at clubs, and is of course something that is taken extremely seriously by everybody at ClubView. 

The nature of what we do means that, by definition, some of the data points we collect in the platform would be commercially sensitive if other clubs were able to see the figures provided. 

Delivering on our mission statement of creating the industry standard for real-time, independent financial benchmarking in sport relies on every one of our clients trusting us and our methodology and processes, and turning any perception of competitive disadvantage on it’s head. 

We’ve used our industry and data knowledge and experience to take into careful consideration how we deal with potentially sensitive data points and I wanted to share a little about that methodology here. 

General Approach

Our data methodology can be summarised in 3 points: 

1. ClubView commits to not collecting data unless we have a clear and documented reason for doing so in our methodology. 
2. No sensitive data should be identifiable and/or shared between clubs and leagues. 
3. ClubView will operate with complete transparency in how it collects, processes and manages industry data. 

In general, every time a data point is added to our data library, we analyse how that data can be used alongside other data points, and document what it will deliver when processed according to our methodology. All clubs and leagues understand which data points are used for which models and reports, and we think this is really important to demonstrate the clearly defined methodology and scope we have when collecting data.

Our data structure means that whilst all individual data feeds into the overall ClubView database, individual club data points are not shared but instead converted to metrics which can be used for non commercially sensitive comparison (such as rankings, ratios, growth rates). You can see some examples in the club to club section below. 

In addition, we recognise that even within clubs there are areas of the product which should only be visible to certain users. Our reports and benchmarks are therefore assigned separate silos by our 5 benchmarking areas which can be restricted by user level. It is also possible to have users who can only enter data, not see the historic reports or other areas of the platform. 

Data Sharing from Club to League

Our first consideration when scoping implementation of our platform with a new client is identifying “is this a data point which is already collected by the league?”

If it is, of course, we are not asking for new sensitive information, just for access to information already provided. Our platform can then either ingest the data from the league source, via integration or file import, or can become the point of data collection for the league. 

If it is not, and a piece of data from our data library is not currently collected by the league, then the league would only see the rankings and non commercially sensitive metrics in their dashboard, not each individual club figure. 

It’s also important to remember here that it is in every club’s interest for their league to perform well commercially – growth in the performance of the league overall will ultimately deliver more opportunities and revenues for clubs.

Data Sharing from Club to Club

Our second consideration, with each data field in our library, is to rank how commercially sensitive this data is if other clubs had access. Each data field is then scored: 

1 – A score of  1 means this data point in its current format is considered highly sensitive and can be used to calculate benchmarks and rankings, but should under no circumstances be identifiable against the club. An example would be the revenue of the club individual sponsorship contracts.

2 – A score of 2 means this data point has been converted to a metric which is less commercially sensitive, such as a % or range – but will still be displayed in ways which are not traceable back to a specific club. An example would be Concourse Spend Per Head – this metric can be used to show absolute rankings against anonymised clubs, but not against a specific club as then total revenue could be calculated. 

3 – A score of 3 means this data point is not considered commercially sensitive – usually because this data is available in the public domain such as attendance, social media following or ticket prices.

In all cases aside from data points scored 3, we ensure that metrics cannot be traced back to individual clubs, and if displaying rankings or ranges could result in clubs being readily identifiable, we will show the range based on a percentile, such as 90%, of the data – removing the highest and lowest values.

Remember, the data is used to provide accurate, relevant and real-time industry benchmarks to help all clubs – not score or compare clubs against other individual clubs.

Summary

The key point here, is that as with any business, the data is only sensitive IF it is visible where it shouldn’t be. 

It is key to consider as well why these concerns exist. The concerns are valid when applied to existing benchmarking methods. As my previous blog showed, ClubView offers something new in that our independent benchmarking and the fact we offer the results and forecasts in real-time, means that unlike previously, clubs will be at a competitive disadvantage NOT to share this information in the context of the ClubView platform. 

Everything that we do at ClubView in our approach to data underpins the fact that to be truly independent and have the trust of the industry, no commercially sensitive data should be identifiable within our platform where it is not already. 

We operate with complete transparency, and under NDA or contract we are happy to share our entire data library, data methodology and security policy with any direct client (league) and their sub-clients (clubs).

Matt Everett
Chief Executive

The post Turning the ‘competitive disadvantage’ argument on it’s head with a clear data methodology appeared first on ClubView.

Over recent weeks and months, ClubView has made several presentations to clubs and leagues about the real-time, independent financial benchmarking that our platform offers. 

We’ve been working with 9 pilot clubs within the EFL to demonstrate the power of aggregated club data, but why is ClubView so different to existing methods, and why is that difference so important when looking to unlock the wealth of ‘off pitch’ data? 

I think it is important at this stage to share my experience and opinion on existing benchmarking methods. I think they are underutilised and undervalued – for three key reasons. 

1. Benchmarks are not real-time
2. There is not enough participation or data to create meaningful benchmarks
3. Spurious/Incorrect data is used rendering benchmarks meaningless

ClubView has been developed to solve all of these issues.

Firstly, immediately upon entering data into the ClubView platform, a club can see the benchmarks for that moment in time. This means it is accessible as you are making decisions, you understand the current market, and can use that in your decision making process. 

For example, if I am a club Commercial Director, and my club has been promoted. I receive an offer for sponsorship which is 5% higher than the previous season, but in the ClubView platform I can see that the benchmark  value for a club of my size in the division above is 15% higher, I can use this information at the time I need it for the negotiation – not receive a report after I have signed the contract. 

Secondly, clubs not participating or submitting the data is a big issue with current methods. In my experience, clubs do not engage with benchmarking not only because it is not real-time, but because the insights are not actionable and maybe even because there is not enough participation in a self fulfilling cycle. 

Data collection is often ad-hoc and manual in nature, collected via spreadsheet or online form and having to be processed manually by the league or 3rd Party. This also means that various benchmarks may be sent to different heads of club operations, but collating an umbrella view across the club for CEO’s and Boards is difficult.

ClubView solves this by making benchmarks possible by division region or clustered club size – making it far more relevant. The platform also removes outliers (highlighted at time of data entry), and shows ranges, rankings and benchmarks across club operations which can be used there and then to take actionable and measurable decisions that have a very real impact on commercial and financial performance, all in one place. 

Thirdly, I’ve seen first hand that sometimes club figures provided are inaccurate or not valid. In order to provide really meaningful insights. Our clearly defined data library makes clear what information should be submitted into the platform for each benchmark – and by excluding outliers from the benchmark where needed this means clubs entering incorrect data will not benefit from the reports. 

We have worked on the ClubView platform over the past 2.5 years to solve these  flaws with existing benchmarking methods within the industry. 

Coupled with us being independent, and having clear and transparent data methodologies in place for our benchmarking, and our vision to make this accessible and possible across the whole industry we feel that our approach really does revolutionise financial benchmarking compared to existing methods.

The post The power of aggregated club data appeared first on ClubView.

There unfortunately seems to be a sting in the tail of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in the UK currently. You need to look no further than the daily news headlines about using the data hour-by-hour to make informed decisions, to see how real-time data is key to informing policy in a very high profile way. 

Couple that with the announcement that Wales will enforce all sporting fixtures to be played behind closed doors once more for at least the next few weeks, and it in clear that, here at least, fans will be taking stock and making individual choices whether to attend matches based on their circumstances, just when sport and confidence amongst the public seemed to be recovering. 

So what has this got to do with ClubView? 

Well, it perfectly highlights the power of real-time benchmarks and insights to clubs. We have been working with 9 EFL pilot clubs, looking at their matchday revenues and costs back to the 2014/15 season, and crucially on the impact the pandemic has had. 

By aggregating their data, we’ve been able to show the impact as the season has progressed on matchday revenues and costs. Across the 9 clubs, the average attendance drop was 12.9% since 2019/20, the last (almost!) full season with supporters in attendance. 

The advantage that these clubs have, is that every week the benchmarks and trends are updated – they can identify in real-time whether any changes were just local to them as a club, regional, or across the entire group of clubs.

This is why ClubView partners with leagues. Every club will know very well their own performance, but it is possible to gain huge benefit from understanding how that compares to others, without sharing commercially sensitive data. 

In real life terms, how might this make a difference? Well, just last week, it was suggested that fans should only attend a stadium this weekend if it to get a vaccination, not to watch a match. 

So what was the impact on fan confidence? Clubs need to know immediately what impact this type of public health advice will have on their revenues, so that they might adjust their forecasts accordingly. The only way to understand the true impact is to know how this affected everybody, remove outliers and factors such as form, and use long-term data to give informed benchmarks based on the current time. 

But there is a wider picture, and more insight that would be crucial for clubs planning over the coming weeks. Those with attendances over 10,000, have to implement additional measures to check Covid vaccination status as a legal requirement for entry. Understanding what the cost implication was for the resource required for such an operation, across many clubs, may help those who play at home the following week to make informed decisions on staffing. It may even lead to clubs whose attendance was around the threshold to decide to cap their capacity with the knowledge that the increased costs of undertaking such an operation would not be covered by additional ticket sales and concourse revenue. 

Similarly, the low turnout of season ticket holders – those who have paid for their ticket and are counted in the attendance but do not show up. This number will have undoubtedly increased over recent weeks, as uncertainty grew. Again, by knowing how your actual football compares to others, will help you to forecast costs and revenues on in stadia concourses for example. You can then take action by establishing if you as a club are doing enough to give confidence to attend, or whether you need to focus on this more. 

All of these are examples where a real-time platform like ClubView would be able to show these insights and benchmarks to clubs as events like this were occurring, and allow them to take actionable decisions. 

The ever changing pandemic situation means constant adjustments to financial planning for sports clubs, and as the uncertainty looks set to continue for some time, using club data to enhance decision making capability in the ClubView platform would result in at least some of the uncertainty being reduced. 

The post Using data to make decisions in uncertain times…. appeared first on ClubView.

The pandemic will cost over €8 billion to clubs and puts 120 teams “at existential risk” – why real-time financial intelligence is now needed.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting health crisis will cost European football clubs over €8 billion over two seasons, marking a sharp setback after 20 years of uninterrupted growth. 

This is indicated by the annual Uefa interactive report (The European Club Footballing Landscape). According to the report there are 120 teams “at existential risk” due to financial difficulties.

UEFA’s conclusions are that the pandemic has not spared any team, depriving the entire sector of “at least” 10% of the expected revenues for 2019-20 and 2020-21. 

Over the two seasons that had to deal with the health crisis, according to UEFA estimates, the lost revenues for the 55 European leagues amounted to €8.7 billion, €7.2 billion of which for the 711 most important clubs and €1.5 billion for the smaller ones. 

The European Club Association, for its part, had estimated lost earnings for European clubs in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 at €4 billion, but last December its former president, Andrea Agnelli, spoke of a much higher impact, in the range between €6.5 and €8.5 billion euros.

According to Uefa, stadium closures were the first to weigh, which for the 711 elite teams caused a reduction in ticketing revenues between €3.6 and €4 billion across the two years and of course the return to full stadiums still remains shrouded in uncertainty.

Commercial revenues are then indicated as decreasing by €2.4 – €2.7 billion, while TV rights will be cut by €1.2 – €1.4 billion over the two seasons and with renegotiations already underway to reduce them by €700 million euro after 2021 for Uefa broadcasters and the five main leagues. 

The clubs most affected are the French ones, with a 30% drop in global revenues, together with Scottish clubs.

The crisis has interrupted two golden decades for European football, which had recorded an average growth in revenues of 8.2% a year since 1999.

In the two decades, however, salaries have also risen, which have come to absorb 60% of revenues, a share “significantly higher than any other sector, including the investment bank”, observes UEFA.

Regarding cash flows, a key issue given the high levels of debt in the sector, UEFA expects around 120 clubs to be at “existential risk” while the others will compensate for their losses by resorting to new loans or appealing to owners. .

Convention for the future of football

Uefa has therefore announced the launch in the coming months of an important consultation process to bring all stakeholders of European football closer together and strengthen the future of football for the benefit of all. In the coming months, The conference will bring together representatives of national football associations, leagues, clubs, players, coaches, fans and agents to discuss long-term political and governance reforms. 

Aleksander Čeferin said: “The whole football ecosystem, professional, amateur and youth, have been heavily disrupted by the pandemic. This requires deep cooperation and a co-ordinated response across the football pyramid. Solidarity, not self-interest, must prevail and will win the day.

ClubView is designed to protect the integrity of the European football pyramid, empowering Leagues with financial intelligence for the benefit of all their clubs.

Our technology is the football industry’s independent platform to monitor, benchmark and protect the financial health of clubs, leagues and the entire football pyramid.

The real-time data that the ClubView system collects from clubs on behalf of their leagues can be used as an independent foundation for any regulation.  

It also benefits every club, as they will receive regular, actionable, financial intelligence reports and insights.

The Leagues and Associations in partnership with ClubView will be able to build a sustainable future for their member clubs with real-time financial intelligence and insights for the future good of football.

Change is clearly needed, and we are ready to help play our part in helping the sport we love to recover from the impact of the pandemic, to build a sustainable and fair future across the game. 

The post Real-time financial intelligence could help pandemic recovery for clubs across Europe appeared first on ClubView.

Why Private Equities are investing in sport, where they see the value, and why clubs and leagues need financial intelligence and data.

The German Football League (DFL) is going to invite investment bids for a minority stake in its overseas media rights business, according to Bloomberg.

Japanese financial services company Nomura were reportedly hired to handle the tender and Bloomberg reports that as many as 30 bidders could enter the race, with Bain Capital, CVC Capital Partners, General Atlantic, KKR & Co, Advent International and BC Partners having previously been cited as interested parties. CVC Capital already own a 27% stake in Premiership Rugby, the English rugby union top flight.

A private equity consortium led by CVC Capital Partners and Advent is now close to acquiring 10% stake in Serie A’s new media business for €1.7 billion and in recent weeks BC partners are eyeing an important investment in Inter Milan.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Nikos Stathopoulos, top manager of BC Partners stated:

“Inter? Obviously I can’t comment on deals that have not taken place but we are certainly considering investing in the sports industry, be it league or club-owned. And the club should be a club with a high chance of competing at the highest level ”.

Stathopoulos is partner, chairman of the portfolio management committee, member of the executive committee, as well as guiding the company’s investments in telecommunications and media with particular attention to the investments in Italy of the BC Partners fund, in negotiations with Suning to buy the Inter.

“We are approaching the world of sport from a content point of view. Sport is a great source of high-value content – it’s real-time, it’s unique, and such content has value. Like music and cinema, sport has very attractive content for the public, ”continued Stathopoulos.

“Sport has content that can be monetized. It is less important whether it is a league or a club, it obviously depends on what is available on the market. Sport is an industry we are looking at more and more and it is a growing industry. The monetization of content is a trend that we will see more and more, sport is not a sector with rules like all other industrial sectors and private equity funds can be catalysts in institutionalizing a sector that is very attractive and growing “.

“How does the growth of Amazon and Netflix change the choices in sports investments? It’s a great example of the type of asset that is growing these days and the type of content to invest in because it can grow to maximize value.

The growth of Netflix etc has institutionalized the sector and shows that content can have great value, just look at the value of Netflix today which is not comparable with the value of any club in any sport ”.

“I don’t think there are major differences in having private equity fund ownership fully or partially, as many of the negotiations with the leagues involve minority stakes.

The funds would bring capital and potentially even more professionalism, more discipline and more rules to leagues and clubs that are now driven from a more individual point of view. I don’t think there should be any concern for the entry of those who have brought more discipline and rules to the sectors where they have previously invested.

Leagues and clubs of all sizes can now embrace data science and financial intelligence to attract private equity investment and institutional investors.

A lot of clubs can be supported by leagues to become more data driven in their decision making and ClubView is looking to partner with innovative leagues to manage their post-covid recovery where there are a lot of opportunities to grow and maximise value of their assets.

We can be a catalyst to support leagues of all sizes with a bespoke approach towards financial sustainability so the pyramid can be better protected,, harnessing the power of data and being able to extract useful information in real-time.

The post Private Equity investment in sport – and the need for financial intelligence and data appeared first on ClubView.

In the first of three blogs from ClubView Chairman Dick Knight, we talk about how a system like ClubView could have helped during his time as Chairman at Brighton and Hove Albion.

How would having a system like ClubView have helped?

When I took over at Brighton, the situation was about as bad as it could get because of the actions of the previous owner. Basically, better financial due diligence by the Football League – which is what the ClubView real-time reporting system offers – would have revealed to the League the issues much earlier.

It would have provided indications of what was happening sooner, but none of that existed, therefore the situation had got out of hand – as was the situation with Bury in 2019. Nothing had changed from when I took over at Brighton in 1997 to 2019, when Bury went under due to the actions of previous owners, with the League only acting when it was too late.

Did you find financial issues at Brighton that had not been divulged or discovered until your due diligence?

Yes – and the League only became aware of them at that point as well.

I believe that Leagues should play a major role in the due diligence of club takeovers – the ClubView data compiled for each club would give valuable information to prospective buyers, and also provide an independent validation for club sellers – it is to their advantage as well.

As a prospective owner, did you feel that you received enough central information from the League?

Through the months of negotiation in attempting to remove the previous owner, I received no assistance from the League due to the lack of relevant information despite the issues that were becoming evident.

I’m certain that if a ClubView type financial intelligence system was in place, then the League would be able to play a more proactive role in the takeover of clubs.

As a club owner, would you have been concerned with providing more financial transparency to the League?

No, because with the right security measures in place, and knowing all clubs were participating in what should be in my view a mandatory part of League membership, I would not have been concerned about providing this information through a system like ClubView, which operates the tightest security procedures.

In this pandemic-ravaged economic state of the game, it’s become essential for Leagues to better govern their clubs financially in order to ensure long-term sustainability of the clubs. All clubs should participate – the League leads for the benefit of its clubs.

After you took over the club, how would additional information have been useful day-to-day?

As an owner, I know the ClubView system would have been hugely beneficial, because it gives you a complete up-to-date overview of your club’s finances. To be able to compare in real-time our financial performance with that of other clubs across a range of financial operations like sponsorship, hospitality, merchandising and ticketing would have been invaluable.

ClubView gives you all that insight, with the other clubs anonymised of course, providing benchmarks for each category allowing you to set achievable targets across a range of revenue streams.

All-in-all, ClubView lets a club make better informed-financial decisions, faster.

Dick Knight

In two further blogs, Dick will talk more about why Leagues should embrace the ClubView system, and why he is personally involved in ClubView.

The post How a system like ClubView could have helped me as a club owner appeared first on ClubView.

As sport looks to survive and emerge from the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, many clubs have relied on bailouts to reduce or negate the losses incurred by continuing to play ‘behind closed doors’ or having their seasons curtailed entirely. 

Bailouts have come from various sources – in the UK either privately from the top of the game such as the Premier League funding to the EFL, or from state intervention such as the government bailout for the National League and below either directly or via National Lottery funding. 

The impact on sports has also varied – those that have continued have managed to largely mitigate the impact on central broadcast right revenues by completing their seasons, albeit with the loss of matchday and other commercial revenue. 

However we don’t have to look much further afield to see real problems arising, with the French broadcast deal being cancelled, and an auction to replace the outgoing rights holder not reaching an acceptable reserve. 

The terms of bailouts also vary, and clubs are having to navigate carefully through the options available to them. We have seen 3 main routes to a bailout: 

1. An advance of central/solidarity payments from the Leagues to their clubs.
2. Loans from Leagues, State or banks directly to clubs
3. Grants from State or Lottery to clubs via their Leagues

Every option does, or should, involve the League either providing the funding or negotiating the funding on behalf of their clubs. 

Clearly for clubs, option 3 is the most attractive. Revenues lost to the pandemic are lost forever – they will not recoup those losses for matches played behind closed doors, so taking on loans adds repayments further down the road, as does advancing central payments. 

We now see the issues this can cause, with the temporary suspension of Leagues whilst clubs vote on whether to accept terms offered, or continue to lobby for funding to be in the form of grants. 

This is where the ClubView product would really come into its own. Leagues are having to play a crucial role on behalf of their clubs, and their hand would be strengthened ten-fold with a real-time dashboard of expected and lost revenues across each club. 

From the point of view of the source of the bailout as well, there would then be full transparency of how the funds were used and why they were needed on a club by club level, and this of course retains the level playing field and sporting integrity by ensuring fair and equitable distribution. This is especially important when using public money or money for ‘good causes’ such as the National Lottery.

I wrote a little about this in a earlier blog, but with the impact and realisation that it now looks likely the entire season (give or take a few exceptions in November and possibly later in the Spring) will take place behind closed doors, many clubs are relying on their Leagues to source the funding to allow them to continue. 

ClubView is about giving Leagues that real-time economic outlook across their clubs – in the short term to understand forthcoming issues affecting their clubs but in the longer term to enable better financial forecasting and central support to identify growth opportunities and ensure better sustainability long into the future. 

For clubs, they receive a wealth of benchmarks and insights to allow them to take measured day-to-day decisions on their costs and revenue streams and see the impact of those on their clubs financial health. 

I liken the issue to the gaps seen across other sectors when it comes to support through the pandemic. For example the UK Government Self Employed Income Support programme has unfortunately been unable to help people who became self employed in the 12-18 months prior to March 2020 because there were only annual records of their earnings. Leagues are often in a similar position with their knowledge of club finances. 

This is what the ClubView system offers to sport, by empowering Leagues with that information in real-time for the benefit of all of their clubs.

The post The Bailout Lottery – How the ClubView system is designed to help Leagues, Clubs AND bailout sources appeared first on ClubView.

At ClubView, we have made no apologies for the fact that a big part of our motivation is protecting the sporting integrity of the football pyramid. We put our team together with a shared passion for this, and the aim of driving and facilitating change across the whole industry.

Of course many examples exist of issues caused by finances affecting the pyramid system. In England, we have regularly seen points deductions which affect sporting integrity, and sadly recently clubs liquidating completely such as Bury and Macclesfield.

In Scotland, Rangers started again in League Two and outside of football, Saracens were demoted from the rugby Premiership for salary cap breaches.

We believe that stronger governance and better financial reporting by Leagues can help to solve many of these issues.

But it is not just in the UK that pyramids are at risk. I read again with interest last week as the prospect of a European Super League again reared its head.

This time, talk was of 15 ‘founder member clubs’ – including 6 from England but of course the other big hitters from across Europe as well – earning up to €350m each for joining.

This is, of course, serious money – and a threat that seems unlikely to go away.

But what of those clubs native league systems? The continued sustainability and integrity of those competitions relies on the big hitters playing a full – and committed – part in them. That also applies to the existing European competition format with the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

At ClubView, our system helps to empower Leagues to grow, to the benefit of all clubs. We can improve governance and reporting, but also identify key revenue streams that could be increased and costs that are unsustainable.

What is clear is that this will be key in Europe as well as the UK, to ensure the Leagues retain their full quota of clubs. We can help Leagues to grow, sustainably, and benefit all of their clubs.

I was encouraged by the swift and strong rebuttals by FIFA, UEFA and European Leagues. The latter in particular recognising the strength of the pyramid, stating “The European sports model is based on sporting merit, promotion and relegation with qualification to international club competitions via domestic league competitions. In the European football pyramid, every player has the opportunity to play in a club which can qualify from the base of the pyramid to the very top of professional football. This is the foundation of the model and the main reason for football’s success. We are determined to protect the existing model and how football is organised in Europe and the way the industry works for professional football.”

Banning players who play in ‘unlicensed’ competitions from representing clubs or countries in their own tournaments ‘should’ be a big deterrent. Whether it will be big enough though remains to be seen.

The ClubView platform is designed to to empower Leagues themselves, and show strong leadership to their clubs, which will clearly be needed to satisfy those few clubs determined to break away.

Hopefully our technology and approach can play a part in that, to sustain the pyramids of the beautiful game.

The post Protecting the pyramid – in Europe as well as the UK appeared first on ClubView.

The coronavirus pandemic had a profound impact on global sports this year, cancelling or postponing events and virtually eliminating match-day attendance at remaining fixtures. But as leagues and franchises grasp for a financial foothold, the tumult of 2020 accelerated a nascent trend in the business of sport: the influx of institutional capital.

CVC Capital Partners, Advent International, and state-backed Italian investor FSI have agreed to pay €1.7 billion for a 10% stake in a new media rights unit being launched by Serie A, and they have tried to add a breakaway clause after some of Europe’s top football clubs discussed setting up a separate, continent-wide super league

The uncertainty could be a factor in other private capital investments, including several private equity groups looking to invest in media rights for Germany’s Bundesliga.

US investors have been recently targeting European clubs as stated in the last report by the KPMG Football Benchmark.

Many European football clubs have seen their market value dropping during the Covid-19 pandemic and have seen their revenues collapsing compared to the costs that remained the same. The absence of gate receipts is obvious – and in some cases, they have seen some media and commercial deals being disputed.

During 2020 American investors and investment firms have been very active in investing in European football clubs.

In France in July, the American investment firm owner Gerry Cardinale completed the takeover of Toulouse, who finished bottom of Ligue 1 in the coronavirus-abbreviated French football season.

A 35% stake takeover of second-division club Girona FC has been the only transaction in Spain this year, in contrast to five deals completed there in 2019.

In Italy, AS Roma, Parma Calcio, and Venezia FC have all received major investment from American investors and changed majority owners during the coronavirus pandemic.

American investors have potentially been attracted by lower valuations and by the opportunity to take advantage of acquiring players at a discounted price from clubs that are now forced to sell players because of the financial issues caused by the pandemic – and will be able to sell them later to a much higher value in 3 to 5 years.

The interest in European football clubs has also been driven by the digital transformation that has pushed professional football closer to becoming “a true entertainment industry”.

US investors have great experience in sports business, and they have a long-term investment strategy and know-how to make the most of owning football clubs, diversifying their sports ownership portfolio. Some of these European football clubs could potentially deliver great growth if they qualify for the major European competitions.

Americans are also at the forefront of innovation in sport, for example, the Major League Soccer is one of the most innovative Leagues in the world in the use of data and analytics.

Soccer analytics and data science applied to football have a large impact on MLS, It has influenced changes in how the game is played, shots closer to goal, taking shorter goal kicks, and quick throw-ins, all of which was suggested by looking at data. As the amount of data available to teams increases, they will get more efficient in how they play.

Financial intelligence could support clubs to measure with data the impact of investments and measuring the impact of specific decisions. Joseph Cooper, Head of Data Science at ClubView is firmly convinced that data science and financial intelligence will change and improve the financial performance and the governance of football.

The post Private capital and US investors are looking for opportunities in European Football – can this flow of investments accelerate innovation in football? appeared first on ClubView.

It’s one of the first questions I am always asked – understandably! What could your product do to help in the here and now?

It’s a question that doesn’t surprise me, because knowing the industry as we do, we know that financial outlooks were often short term even before the pandemic – and perhaps even more so now. That’s not an inherent criticism, just a bi-product of the culture that has built up over many years.

If there is one thing that 2020 has proved, it is that now is the best opportunity there will be to change that.

At ClubView, we of course follow with great interest the various proposals and methods which are out there to reform or bailout the game. There has been Project Big Picture, Sustain the Game from the FSA and Saving Our Beautiful Game to name just a few.

We have seen the National League receive a £10m bailout direct from the National Lottery, and the Premier League and EFL debating the terms of a £50m bailout for League One and Two.

Throughout the process, leagues and their clubs have spoken about the difficulty in distributing this much needed money fairly and transparently, without affecting the sporting integrity of the leagues or being seen to ‘punish’ those clubs which have operated sustainably and are surviving the pandemic in their own right.

A key point here is that we do not believe in one approach over another. But whatever approach is taken to reform the game moving forward, we have a ready made technology platform to allow that reform to be governed and avoid so many of the issues we have seen over the past few weeks.

Our platform would have allowed a league to distribute bailout fairly based on revenues and forecasts generated over many seasons. It would have given transparency as to where bailout money was being spent, and it would have crucially made the allocation fair on clubs and maintained the sporting integrity.

Our agile approach also means that we could very quickly have switched financial reporting and benchmarks from attendance and matchday revenues to streaming – a revenue stream that is entirely new to a lot of clubs who could have benefitted from that support when looking to maximise this whilst fans are not allowed to attend matches.

So to answer the original question – how could we help right now? Well it could be argued, rightly so perhaps, that we are not going to save a club tomorrow. However, what we could do is bring to the table a system that may help all parties involved in reforming the game to move forward with those discussions knowing that the ‘how’ would be taken care of, by ClubView, for the benefit of all of a leagues member clubs.

In many ways it is frustrating that we were not in place before the pandemic – but in other ways we are here and ready to help football to embrace financial intelligence technology right when it is needed most.

As I said, we do not endorse any particular reform, but we do know that clearly football must come out of this a changed industry for the better.

We know we can play a significant part in that.

The post How could ClubView have supported the football industry through the Covid-19 pandemic? appeared first on ClubView.