Chelsea’s 2011-12 Uefa Champions League triumph netted the club €59.4 million ($74.8 million) in revenue from television and commercial rights sales for the competition, according to figures from European football’s governing body.
Uefa said a total of €754.1 million was distributed to teams competing in its flagship club competition last season, with Chelsea securing nearly €20 million more than beaten finalist Bayern Munich.
For its second-tier competition the Europa League, Uefa distributed a total of €150.36 million to participating teams in 2011-12. The season’s winner Atlético Madrid was the highest earner, with €10.52 million.
Chelsea’s Champions League earnings included €29.9 million in participation, match and performance bonuses in the group and knockout stages, including the final, as well as €30.04 million from the television ‘market pool’.
The market pool is a portion of the Champions League revenues that are distributed based on the size of the competition’s television rights deals in clubs’ home territories. The total market pool for the Champions League was €341.1 million.
Bayern Munich earned €41.73 million, with €26.9 million coming from participation, match and performance payments, and €14.83 million from the television market pool.
The rest of the top five earners from the Champions League was made up of semi-finalists Barcelona (€40.6 million) and Real Madrid (€38.4 million), and quarter-finalist AC Milan, which earned €39.9 million.
Europa League runner-up Athletic Bilbao – a fellow Spanish Liga team whom Atlético beat 3-0 in May’s final – walked away with €9.52 million from its run in the competition, the third-highest of the participating clubs.
The television market pool accounted for €60 million of the Europa League’s prize money. Strong Europa League television rights deals in Germany and Turkey meant clubs from these two countries accounted for the remainder of the top five highest-earning clubs in 2011-12.
German quarter-finalists Schalke 04 (€10.5 million) and Hannover 96 (€8.43 million) took second and fifth spots, while Turkish Super Lig club Besiktas came in fourth (€8.86 million) despite being knocked out in the competition’s Round of 16.
Uefa said in May that Champions League prize money for the next three seasons, from 2012-13 to 2014-15, will increase by 15 per cent.
Combined revenues for the Champions League and Europa League are set to exceed €1.5 billion for the next cycle.
Uefa’s current three-year Champions League broadcast and sponsorship rights cycle, from 2009-10 to 2011-12, generated €1.1 billion annually.