The 10 Most Valuable Leagues In The World 2024

What are the most valuable leagues in the world? Professional sports are a very profitable source of business around the world. With increasingly globalized leagues, more sophisticated products, attention to detail taken to the maximum, and players who every day become more mediatic, these championships gain added value and see much more than just matches of certain football, basketball or American football.

These are complex, structured events that seek to provide the fans and viewers with entertainment and emotion.

Among so many important competitions that are watched all over the world, some of them stand out more for several reasons. A survey carried out by the portal Money Inc. separated the 10 most valuable leagues on the planet and how much each one is currently worth. Check out!

10. NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball) – $1.1 billion

Japan’s professional baseball league may not be as popular in the west, but it’s a rage in the east. After the USA, no other country has a league as structured, loved and qualified as that of the Asian country. With 12 teams participating and distributed in 143 games in the season, the NPB was valued at 1.1 billion dollars. The calendar that runs from the end of March to mid-November guarantees entertainment for sports lovers for a good part of the year, unlike others that end faster.

9. Ligue One (French Championship) – $1.3 billion

The 1st division of French football is another competition that enters the list of most valuable leagues in the world. There are 20 teams, more than 500 participating athletes, and almost half of them are foreigners. With the cash injection that PSG has received in recent years, many new hotspots have been arriving in the league and increasing their value. An example of this is Neymar, who since arriving in Paris has simply changed the routine of the club and the journalists who follow Paris Saint-Germain on a daily basis.

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8. Serie A (Italian Championship) – $1.7 billion

Every year that passes Serie A, the elite division of Italian football, gains more added value. After a few years going through financial problems, the big clubs went back to doing media business, smaller teams got structured and today are able to fight against the more traditional ones and big stars switched more prestigious leagues to help football in Italy return to what it once was. Today, names like Cristiano Ronaldo are helping to put the spotlight on Terra da Bota.

7. La Liga (Spanish Championship) – $2 billion

Despite being a league that still has a lot of economic disparity between Real Madrid and Barcelona for the rest of the teams, La Liga, 1st division of the Spanish Championship, tries to balance the budget of the clubs involved, ensuring greater competitiveness, and, consequently, greater appeal of the public to watch the matches and consume the product. Speaking of the two giants in the country, they are very responsible for all the publicity that makes the competition worth what it is currently worth (a figure that increases year after year).

6. Bundesliga (German Championship) – $2.5 billion

Germany’s economy is one of the strongest in the world and this is reflected in its main football league, the Bundesliga, which has enjoyed 14 straight years of growth. With big stars, organized championships, first-rate structure and a lot of competitiveness (although it is difficult to dethrone Bayern Munich), the sport’s elite in the country is one of the great businesses that move the country and that has the supporters as one of its main attractions. After all, it is difficult to find in other countries so many teams with high average attendance during the season as in the German country.

5. NHL (National Hockey League) – $3.7 billion

Of American sports, ice hockey has always been the most underrated. It still is, today, but the NHL should be congratulated for the absurd valuation it has achieved in recent years. With each new season, the league has been breaking financial records, bringing more visibility to the championship and attracting more fans around the world – here in Brazil it is already a part of the sports channel schedule. The growth is such that in less than 20 years the NHL has jumped from 25 million dollars to an absurd 3.7 billion dollars.

4. NBA (National Basketball League) – $4.4 billion

The NBA is a great example of how globalization is good for business. In addition to encouraging the development of players outside the big cities to familiarize new fans, the league started to promote official games in other countries and only became more popular. Add to this the exemplary competence that organizers and teams have to transform every match into a grandiose event and the show that the stars give on the court, and we have one of the most expensive championships in the world.

3. Premier League (English Championship) – $4.9 billion

The Premier League is the most expensive football league in human history. With exemplary organization, plenty of money for even medium teams to hire big names in the sport and massive investment to strengthen the brand in other channels, such as in video games, for example, the English Championship is an example of how to manage and take good care of your product can make you solid and popular all over the world. The success is such that other organizations across Europe have already started to adopt the English model to try to achieve the same results.

2. MLB (Major League Baseball) – $9.5 billion

For the 16th year in a row, MLB, the top baseball league in the United States, has set a money-raising record. One of the biggest passions of Americans, who don’t worry about spending money when it comes to sports, is practically a religion for a good part of the population that closely follows the ridiculous marathon games of the teams fighting for the World Series.

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1. NFL (National Football League) – $12 billion

The sports religion in the United States is called the NFL, the American football league. It offers the fewest games among all the other competitions on the list, but it is, without a doubt, the one with the greatest impact in the world. It’s so incredible that a league of a sport that is local (practically only the US has a professional league) gets numbers closer and better than the World Cup, the main event of the most popular mass sport on the planet.