Biggest TV deal ever signed by a sport franchise?
 

Real Madrid, the most famous soccer team in the world, has just signed a new contract for it's TV rights for the next 7 years. They will receive around $1.4 Billion from now until 2013 for all their TV rights.

It has been announced here in Spain as the biggest TV rights contract ever signed by a sport franchise, not matched by any other team or sport in the world, including USA pro ones. As i don't know enough about USA sports economics, i have my doubts, is it true?

Until a few years ago, the TV rights in Spain were negotiated collectively by all the pro soccer teams but a few years ago they started to negotiate individually by each team, creating a huge gap between the top and the bottom teams, even more knowing that there is not any kind of salary cap in European soccer.

Off hand, I'd say it's quite possible that this is the biggest.

While some MLB teams do have lucrative TV deals (Yankees & Red Sox come to mind), I don't believe the dollar values approach the approximately $1.5 billion level of this one.

The really big money, in terms of sports & television, in the US is negotiated between the leagues and the networks, rather than team specific like this one for Real Madrid.

The major TV deals in the US usually involve the entire league so I don't think they come anywhere near $190M+ per year.

and this is only for HALF of Real Madrid's games, the home ones

Madrid have become the new Man U in commercial strength - they were always the biggest name, but this is a solid step.

That being said, I look forward to future presidents blowing this money on the mediocrities of the world. :D

god i hate the way Europe does sports.... thank god for american football and the salary cap.

I think European sports behave more like "The American Way". You are rewarded for strong play by being promoted to the top level league, and you are demoted to lower level leagues for poor play. If a team doesn't have the resources to compete at a high level (either financial resources or athletic resources), then they are not kept in the top level of competition.

The US style of sports in no way represents a free market system, which we hold is such high regard as a standard of gaging how well non-Sports industries perform.

I like the European way.

I always thought the big teams, the Yankees, Manchester United, ect. owned the networks they broadcast the games on?

The Yankees and Mets now own their own networks. Do the Red Sox actually own NESN?

yup

Cool. It becomes extremely hard to figure out how much money these teams are actually making when they can stash revenues within the company, and not the baseball club. I'm not sure of all the economic stuff, but I think that was a big deal in one of the labor discussions a few years back, as they couldn't figure out just how much the Yankees were making, and how it would affect revenue sharing.

Or, in at least a couple of cases, the teams were owned by the networks.

I know the big English clubs have their own channels, but I don't think they can show live league matches (not sure about the cup competitions).

Yup. Drove me away from the NFL...