Real Madrid won its third straight Champions League in 2018. For once, Los Blancos also topped the charts in Champions League revenue.
UEFA released the 2017-18 Champions League revenue (and Europa League, if anyone cares) on Thursday. For the first time during Real Madrid’s impressive back-to-back-to-back UCL championships, the club also won the most prize money.
UEFA doled out $1.605 billion in Champions League revenue, an increase over the $1.5 billion it gave out in 2016-17. Real Madrid took home $100.8 million of it.
Last year, Juventus was the top earner in the Champions League while the season before it was Manchester City. The Old Lady actually took home more money last year than Real this year, raking in $130.4 million because there were fewer Serie A clubs to split TV money with as Juventus reached the 2017 final.
Every club was guaranteed $14.44 million for reaching the Champions League group stage with additional bonuses of $1.71 million per win and $568,000 per draw. UEFA also gave out money for reaching each progressive round of the tournament:
- Round of 16: $6.82 million
- Quarterfinals: $7.39 million
- Semifinals: $8.53 million
- Runner-up: $12.51 million
- Champion: $17.62 million
More money was given out based on TV market values, divided by the clubs from each country.
In the end, the Champions League revenue looked as follows for the top clubs.
2017-18 Champions League Revenue Top 5
These five clubs round out the top 10:
- 6. Chelsea — $74,077,550
- 7. Manchester City — $72,559,754
- 8. Paris Saint-Germain — $70,555,354
- 9. Tottenham — $69,701,522
- 10. Barcelona — $65,303,893
In all, the five English Premier League clubs earned $167,881,904 in market pool share ($33,576,381 each on average) compared to $102,338,120 for the four LaLiga clubs ($25,584,530 on average). England’s impressive market share is why four of the five EPL clubs are ranked in the top 10 in 2017-18 Champions League revenue despite putting just two teams in the quarterfinals.
Manchester United was England’s lowest earner, bringing home $45,871,553 after winning Group A before falling to Sevilla in the Round of 16.
In comparison, Arsenal, the top earner of all clubs in Europa League revenue, was given $42,952,436, slightly less than the Red Devils. The Gunners reached the semifinals before losing to eventual champion Atlético Madrid. Atlético finished third in its Champions League group and earned $36,074,662 from the Champions League and $18,335,685 from the Europa League for a total outlay of $54,410,347, not far behind fellow LaLiga club Sevilla, which reached the Champions League quarterfinals to earn $55,062,463.
You can check out the entire list of Champions League revenue here and Europa League revenue here, though bear in mind the numbers are in Euros because apparently UEFA is more focused on Europe than the U.S. for some reason.
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