The Premier League isn’t the only competition with deep pockets. La Liga has smashed its transfer spending record just two weeks into the summer transfer window, having already spent $1.13 billion. The previous record of $1 billion was set in 2018, with high potential players such as Thomas Lemar, Malcolm and Vinicius Junior all being sold for over 40 million to Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid, respectively.
Once again, it seems as though the window will be dominated by La Liga’s big three, with Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid spending $835 million of the $1.13 billion already spent this transfer window.
Atletico Madrid has spent the least of the big three, having spent a total of $224 million. Atletico's largest purchase of the summer has been promising forward Joao Felix from Benfica for $143 million.
Barcelona comes in second, having spent $265 million this window, with its largest purchase being French superstar Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid for a reported $136 million.
Finally, Real Madrid is unsurprisingly the biggest spenders, having spent an insane $345 million in just two weeks of the window, with world-class winger Eden Hazard being the biggest splurge of the summer thus far, costing $113 million.
There's a massive difference between the top three teams and the rest of the league in terms of TV revenue, with Barcelona receiving almost four times more than the lowest earning team in La Liga. To put La Liga’s TV revenue structure into perspective, here it is alongside this year's EPL television revenue rankings:
TV Broadcasting revenue between Premier League and La Liga clubs. [@diarioas] pic.twitter.com/EVpc5IWAWd
— Grup 14 (@G14_en) May 24, 2019
The EPL model is far more balanced, with Huddersfield, the lowest earning team, still making 62 percent of Liverpool's revenue, the highest earning team. Compare that to Girona's earnings, which are a paltry 28 percent of Barcelona’s earnings, and one can see how spending in La Liga is so top-heavy.
Believe it or not, the revenue structure in La Liga is actually a massive improvement over the previous system, in which La Liga sold TV contracts independently, resulting in big teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona receiving 38 percent of total TV revenue in the 2014-15 season.
In 2015, La Liga switched to a centralized TV revenue structure, which reduced Real Madrid and Barcelona’s combined share of TV revenue from 38 percent of the total to 23 percent, with that 15 percent being distributed to the rest of the league based on their performance.
Since then, the disparity between the super clubs and the rest of the league has been reduced considerably, allowing all teams to spend more on transfers than ever. However, the financial clout of La Liga’s big three still eclipses that of the rest of the league.
With Real, Barca and Atletico all eyeing at least one more big money transfer this window, expect La Liga’s transfer total to grow considerably before the window’s end.
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