When Riyad Mahrez was signed by Manchester City Football Club in July 2018, he was unveiled to hundreds of fans outside the team’s stadium with pyrotechnics, two mascots dancing to blaring music, and a slick, feature video posted online for the team’s global fans.
It was more fanfare than most new signings get, but why not? They sent a club-record $75 million to Leicester City Football Club just for the rights to sign Mahrez, and agreed to pay Mahrez $65 million over the course of his five-season contract on top of that.
In the five-and-a-half weeks between July 1 and the Premier League transfer deadline on Aug. 8, plus the player transfer window in January, clubs in the world’s richest soccer league collectively shell out more than $1 billion a season to bolster their rosters. This may seem financially unsustainable, but clubs are able to back up the insane spending figures. When a new signing comes aboard, that team isn’t just getting their talents, they’re also getting their worldwide star power.
When Manchester United spent a Premier League-record $116 million on the transfer fee for Paul Pogba in 2016, for example, they didn’t just get Pogba’s talent; they got his brand. He now has more than 50 million followers on social media.
How many of them rushed to buy his new Manchester United jersey? And star jersey purchases are only a small piece of revenue. The club received a $31 million-a-year sponsorship deal with Chevrolet to plaster their logo across the front of Manchester United’s jerseys and inked a $93 million-a-year deal with Adidas to make the full kit for 10 years.
Brands, not just teams, seek out the star power as well. After scoring 30 goals in the 2017-2018 Premier League season, Liverpool star Mo Salah earned an estimated $9 million in endorsement deals. He has major deals with Adidas, EA Sports, and Vodafone, and has starred in commercials alongside marketing powerhouses Lionel Messi and David Beckham.
But it’s not just goalscorers who get all the glory, like in other sports. Salah’s Liverpool teammate Virgil van Dijk set a world-record transfer-fee level for a defender when the team bought him for $91 million from Southampton. Van Dijk will be one of two cover stars on the FIFA 20 video game out this fall. Meanwhile, 20-year-old teammate Trent-Alexander Arnold makes $2 million a season to wear Under Armor cleats.
Soccer’s best players increasingly rival the star power of the world’s biggest actors and actresses. The $33 million Pogba earned from Manchester United and endorsement deals is just less than the $34 million Captain America actor Chris Evans made in 2018, and Evans was the 10th-highest-paid actor that year. Scarlett Johansson, at $40.5 million, was the only actress to earn more than Pogba. Pogba earned more than Angelina Jolie, and more than Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston combined.
For the most exposure, it helps to play in the world’s most-watched league.
By one estimate, an average Premier League match is watched by more than twice as many viewers worldwide as an average match in any other league. Even in the U.S., there were twice as many total viewers for the Premier League than for the America-based MLS in 2018, which is even more astounding since MLS matches are often played in local primetime, while Premier League matches sometimes start as early as 7:30 a.m. EST and almost never end until after 5 p.m. EST.
Those numbers are why, after paying about $83 million dollars per season for a three-season contract that began in 2013, NBC had to double its cost per season to earn the Premier League’s U.S. broadcasting rights again for a six-year contract, worth about $1 billion total.
Players know the Premier League means more attention, and it gives teams an edge when they seek star players.
This summer, defensive midfielder Rodrigo Hernández chose Manchester City over Bayern Munich, the best team in Germany. Tanguy Ndombele picked London’s Tottenham Hotspurs over Juventus, even though Juventus has won the last eight Italian league titles and boasts the star power of Cristiano Ronaldo. And Nicolas Pepe is set to move to London before the start of the season, choosing Arsenal over Napoli.
Last season, the 20 Premier League clubs collectively spent $1.9 billion on transfer fees. But spending is worth it if it brings home trophies. Manchester City’s big spending led to their second-straight league title, while Liverpool spent more than $200 million on transfer fees that summer and went on to win the Champions League. Premier League clubs took all four spots in the finals of European club soccer’s two biggest competitions.
With about a week left to complete deals, the 20 Premier League clubs already surpassed $1 billion in transfer fees. Time will tell if the stars they’ve purchased bring them glory or disappointment.
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
