The Premier League brings in far more revenue than any other European soccer league — and the gap may widen even further soon.

The top-flight English league’s combined revenues climbed to a record $6.2 billion in the 2021-22 season, nearly as much as the next two leagues combined. 

• La Liga came in second among European leagues, with a total haul of $3.5 billion for the season.
• Bundesliga followed with $3.1 billion.
• Serie A made $2.3 billion, and Ligue 1 earned $1.7 billion.

The Premier League kicked off its 31st season on Friday.

Media Matters

With a new slate of media deals kicking in this season, the Premier League is set to soar even higher.

While teams scored a combined $1.7 billion in sponsorship deals and matchday revenue rebounded to $712 million from just $15.3 million in the pandemic-altered 2020-21 season, the bulk of the league’s revenue comes from media deals.

The league notched $3.2 billion from broadcast deals in the 2021-22 season. This season begins a new three-year cycle of rights deals, where the league will earn $12.1 billion — an average of $4 billion per season.

It will be the first time that international deals, which total $6.1 billion, will eclipse domestic ones, due in part to NBC’s six-year, $2.7 billion deal for U.S. rights.

Hold onto your hats: New Era Cap just secured some fresh capital while adding the three biggest sports leagues in the U.S. as minority owners.

Private equity firm ACON Investments closed a single-asset continuation round of around $700 million for the hat maker, ACON announced Thursday.

• The NFL, NBA, and MLB all became minority investors in New Era.
• New investment groups include Apollo, GCM Grosvenor, Hamilton Lane, and Neuberger Berman.

ACON founding partner Ken Brotman called New Era “one of our best performing portfolio investments in [investment fund] ACON Equity Partners IV.”

New Era CEO Chris Koch added that the cash injection will “allow us to consider potential North American and global acquisitions.”

Top Three

The investment represents a rare union between the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

“Having our three largest league partners aligned with us through a strategic equity position further solidifies our already strong partnerships,” said Jim Grundtisch, New Era’s chief revenue officer.

Fanatics has sold stakes to the NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, and the NBA holds stakes in the company’s trading card business and Fanatics China.

The women’s European Championship that ended on July 31 set attendance and viewership records for women’s soccer — but those aren’t the only historic figures the game produced.

Fanatics, which sold official merchandise for the tournament and operates the official online England Store, reported that weekly sales of women’s soccer gear tripled since the start of the women’s Euros, and online sales of women’s merchandise spiked 640% in the four hours after England’s victory in last week’s final.

“More women’s merchandise was sold in just four hours following the final whistle than in the seven days leading up to the final,” Jack Boyle, Fanatics’ global co-head of direct-to-consumer sales, told Reuters. 

Global sales of Fanatics’ women’s sports merchandise was up 28% last year. In 2018, the women’s sports apparel market was valued at $26.8 billion, per Euromonitor International, and the total sports apparel market was $80.1 billion.

Tuning In

Merchandise sales weren’t the game’s only indicator of growing interest in women’s sports.

• England’s 2-1 final victory drew more than 17.4 million viewers on the BBC and was the most-watched women’s soccer match ever in the U.K.
• The final had the highest attendance ever for any men’s or women’s European national team tournament game with 87,192 fans.

UEFA expects to raise $60.9 million in sponsorship money from the women’s Euro tournament, with even more projected in the future.

In 1908, Honus Wagner became the first baseball player to make a $10,000 salary. Now his card is breaking another record — at a slightly higher amount.

A T206 Wagner card, perhaps the most revered among all sports cards, sold for a record $7.25 million through a private sale run by Goldin. 

• The sale breaks the previous record for an individual trading card of $6.6 million, also for a T206 Wagner card.
• There are fewer than 50 authenticated T206 Wagner cards in existence, according to Goldin.

“The vintage card market remains incredibly strong and is continuing to grow,” Goldin founder and executive chairman Ken Goldin told Front Office Sports. “This is because supply of these iconic cards are so rare and because they are a part of not only American sports but American history.”

The record may not last long. A mint condition 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, purchased in 1991 for $50,000 is currently up for auction at Heritage Auctions. The bidding was up to $6.1 million as of Friday. The auction, which ends on Aug. 27, is expected by many to top $10 million. 

Collecting Cash

A report last month from Market Decipher estimated the total sports memorabilia market at $26.1 billion in 2021, with trading cards accounting for around $12.5 billion of that sum.

Ken Goldin told FOS in January that he expected to host $500 million in transactions on his platform this year, compared to $330 million last year and $100 million in 2020.