How much do clubs in the ultra-wealthy Premier League actually earn?
And how big is the economic gap between Serie A and the other top European leagues?
Looking in detail at each competition, the picture that emerges confirms the Premier League’s dominance in terms of revenue, although English clubs are also the biggest spenders, while Serie A is the league most deeply in the red.
Starting with revenue: in the 2023/24 season, Premier League clubs recorded a combined income of €8.9 billion—more than one and a half times the €4.9 billion of the Bundesliga and the €4.2 billion of La Liga.
The gap is striking: just to put it in perspective, the combined revenues of La Liga and the Bundesliga amount to around €9.1 billion, barely surpassing the Premier League’s €8.9 billion on its own.
Trailing further behind are Serie A with €3.8 billion and Ligue 1 with just €3.2 billion.
Compared to the 2022/23 season, in terms of growth, it is once again the Premier League that saw the largest increase in revenue, recording a +10.6% rise. Following behind are Ligue 1 (+9%), the Bundesliga (+8%), and Serie A (+7%), while La Liga posted a decline of around 9%—largely due to the previous seasons’ earnings boost from the CVC partnership, which had temporarily inflated revenues.
The Premier League’s dominance is particularly evident in television rights, which brought in a total of €3.7 billion for English clubs—an amount greater than the entire revenue of both Serie A and Ligue 1 individually.
The English supremacy extends to matchday revenues (€1 billion), commercial revenues (€2.4 billion), and profits from player trading (€1.3 billion).
English clubs also lead when it comes to costs. In 2023/24, Premier League clubs recorded expenses of €8.8 billion, a figure more than one and a half times that of the Bundesliga (€4.7 billion) and La Liga (€4.4 billion). Serie A (€3.9 billion) and Ligue 1 (€3.4 billion) lag further behind in terms of spending.
When it comes to year-on-year cost increases, the Bundesliga leads the way with a 6% rise (while its revenues grew by 8%). More modest increases were seen in Serie A (+4%), Ligue 1 (+4%), and the Premier League (+1.5%), while La Liga’s costs remained largely stable.
The largest expense remains personnel costs. In the Premier League, wages alone amounted to €4.6 billion, compared to €2.4 billion in La Liga, €2 billion in the Bundesliga, €1.9 billion in Serie A, and €1.8 billion in Ligue 1. In terms of amortization and write-offs, English clubs reported costs of €2.2 billion, compared to €951 million in the Bundesliga, €912 million in Serie A, €606 million in La Liga, and €500 million in Ligue 1.
In percentage terms, Serie A spent about 76% of its revenue on wages and amortization—only the Premier League spent more (77%), while Ligue 1 and La Liga spent 72%, with the Bundesliga spending just 62%.
As for net results, Serie A recorded the largest loss, with an aggregate deficit of €370 million, down from €441 million in 2022/23. The only league to see a deterioration in its financials compared to the previous year was La Liga, which shifted from a profit of €308.1 million to a loss of €197.8 million. Among the others, the Premier League reported a loss of about €180 million, Ligue 1 around €164 million, while the Bundesliga saw its aggregate profit increase from €44 million to €114 million.
