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Leicester set to net €190m after fairytale season

Leicester City's Premier League triumph has sent shockwaves around the sporting world, and i...



Leicester set to net €190m aft...
Soccer

Leicester set to net €190m after fairytale season

Leicester City's Premier League triumph has sent shockwaves around the sporting world, and it's set to have a massive impact on the club's bottom line.

Research from analysts at sports data and marketing firm Repucom have estimated that the victory is worth £150m (€190m).

This number is made up of some £90m in prize money from the Premier League, money from taking part in the UEFA Champions League and increased TV and match day revenue.

The winners of the top seven leagues in Europe and this year's Champions League holders will enter the 2016-17 tournament as top seeds, increasing the club's chances of getting a favourable draw.

Participation in the Champions League is particularly lucrative, the club will be awarded £9.3m for qualifying while each win is rewarded with a £1.2m payout and clubs are paid £390,000 for drawing. This also means that the club will get a significant cut of the £897m three-year investment that British broadcaster BT has made in European football rights. The pot for 2016-17 is close to £75m.

This summer sees the latest monster-TV rights deal comes into effect for the Premier League - Sky Sports and BT paid a combined £5.14bn (€6.95bn) to air the live-action.

It works out as £10m per game, £111,111 per minute, and £1,852 for each second of live televised top-flight English football aired between 2016 and 2019.

During this season, televised live games resulted in fees of close to £800,000 being paid to clubs - that's on top of a basic TV fee which is given to all teams, regardless of where they finished during the previous season.

Leicester City's rise to the top of the table made their games must-watch-TV in recent months, meaning more television income for the club. In the first half of this season, only four Leicester matches were shown live.

Building

Spencer Nolan, head of consulting at Repucom UK and Ireland believes that it is crucial that the team continues to pick up new fans, he says that this is "central to realising the club's full potential as a commercial entity."

"While it is too early to really evaluate the rapidly growing fan bases we are starting to see across Asia for example, social media provides us with an opportunity to start to quantify this surge," he continued.

During the season, the club's Facebook fans swelled by over 540% - its biggest foreign hub of supporters can be found in Algeria where fans of PFA Player of the Season, Riyad Mahrez adopted the central-England team. It has also built strong followings in Italy and Thailand where the manager and owners hail from.

Mr Nolan added that it is still unclear exactly how much this win will be worth, "Leicester City FC's real commercial potential will become clearer in the season break as brands vie to associate themselves to the club and, in turn, the league winners aim to maximise the returns their status could command.

"The task now is to optimise the value of those assets and ensure they attract the incomes Leicester City could now generate."

There have been shortages of Leicester City jerseys around the world as the team closed-out its title-wining run.

Going forward...

It remains to be seen if the team will continue from where it left off this year - bookmakers are offering odds of between 33 and 40 to one on them repeating this remarkable achievement.

Since last night's game, Vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has said that the club will "not sell anyone" over the summer months.

The club is likely to face a higher wage bill next year as it renegotiates contracts with some key players.

Manager Claudio Ranieri will receive a £5m bonus according to the Daily Mail

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