Events on the pitch may well be the focal point of their rivalry but for Barcelona and Real Madrid being the world’s biggest club – or at least bigger than the other – is increasingly being defined in the boardroom, on the balance sheet and online.
There can be no question that, Manchester United aside, no clubs in Europe rival the sheer scale of Spain’s duopoly off the pitch. They are the only three teams who in 2017 had revenue of over €600million. Between them they earned a combined €2billion, over a quarter of the revenue of the top 20 in the most recent Deloitte Football Money League.
In the most recent rankings Real Madrid just shade Barcelona with revenue of €674.6m to their rivals €648.3m but this has long been a battle as hotly contested as any on the field.
Notably the balance is also one area where sporting success offers a handy top up. Real Madrid’s victory in the 2017-18 Champions League earned them €88.7m to the €57.4m Uefa paid Barcelona for their run to the quarter-final.
The finances of both Real Madrid and Barcelona paint the future of a modern super club. No longer are the Santiago Bernabeu and Camp Nou the drivers of revenue they once were. The match day experience will never be replicated but the future is as much in having an official sponsor in Mexico (Tecate beer in Real Madrid’s case).
If neither club has quite the borderline parodic array of sponsors that Manchester United have with an official noodle partner neither are far behind. Barcelona, who until 2006 did not even have a shirt sponsor, now have deals with Chinese real estate companies, a Brazilian chocolate brand and a fearsome array of soft drinks partnerships.
Truly Nesquik, Coca Cola and Big Cola are the MSN of sugary drinks.
However it should be noted that neither club is quite yet the cash dispenser that Old Trafford is proving to be. Real Madrid’s most recent accounts might have seen them post a profit of €43m but had they not wiped Cristiano Ronaldo’s wages of their books whilst taking €100m from Juventus they would have posted a hefty loss.
Building a sustainable brand means indoctrinating fans across the world so it is little wonder that both clubs have thrown themselves headlong into the social media revolution. Real Madrid just pip Barcelona to first place as the most followed team on social media platforms. At the time of writing they have 31.2m followers on their main Twitter account to the 29.2m of Barcelona, whilst on Instagram they lead 64.6m to 61.1m. Impressive figures indeed that speak for both clubs global reach though it says something for where football is headed that Cristiano Ronaldo has more Insta-fans than both combined at 144m.
As for the game itself El Clasico is certainly not be the most lucrative game in football. Indeed whilst a defeat on Sunday could be cataclysmic for Julen Lopetegui it will not lead to the same sense of chaos that engulfed Aston Villa when they lost the Championship Play-Off Final to Fulham back in May. That game is worth at least £160million, rising to over £280m if its winner manages to survive a season in the Premier League.
The pure financial rewards of winning El Clasico cannot compare - at least in the short term - but the scale of the match is something else for a league game that, in purely arithmetical terms, is only slightly more significant than how each team fares at the Mestalla or San Mames.
Audience figures are often quoted at around 400m for the event though that seems ambitious at over double the number of fans who settle down to watch the Superbowl.
Data experts Fivethirtyeight put an estimate of 75m as its global audience in 2015, which would suggest that the latest meeting between these two eternal rivals is no Super Bowl or Champions League final but still a bigger worldwide televisual draw than the Oscars.
With its array of glamorous stars, a bevy of awards to be claimed and social media awaiting each and every pratfall with bated breath El Clasico truly is a global phenomenon. And with Gareth Bale, Philippe Coutinho and Sergio Ramos on the pitch the football shouldn’t be too bad either.
