Abstract
The paper seeks to analyse revenues from sponsorship and other commercial activities in European professional football clubs. It investigates in detail the three most important areas of sponsorship in the professional football environment.
For the sake of simplicity these are referred to as: naming rights, kit manufacturer, and shirt sponsor. Not only does this paper deal with the definition of the three most important types of partnership between sponsors and professional football clubs, it also presents specific contracts by and between sponsors and top professional football clubs in Europe.
In addition to sponsorship, attention is also focused on other commercial revenues of professional football clubs generated mainly from merchandising which is closely connected to sponsorship. Even though online presentation is an important factor in communication with their fans, sponsorship is carried out mainly through offline presentation in the practice of professional football clubs.
Only a club with a broad fan base succeeds in attracting prominent sponsors. In terms of total sponsorship and commercial revenues, the English Premier League and German Bundesliga clubs are the most successful as they generate more than 60 million euros per club per year.