Funding of Professional Team Sports Organisations

Funding professional team sports organisations (PTSOs) is challenging from several perspectives. Economic and hence financial success is closely linked to sporting success. Success in sport, however, is associated with a large number of uncertainties, such as injuries to top players and the performance of other teams. In addition to dependence on sporting results, there are also major financial dependencies on individual revenues in many team sports, including media revenues, sponsors and patrons. The loss of individual income positions, the insolvency of league competitors, the cancellation of world or continental championships due to bad weather, the danger of terrorism and other reasons can put a PTSO in a financially and existentially threatening situation. However, PTSOs are not only faced with the challenge of financially securing the ongoing operation, but also that of providing sufficient financial resources for investments, such as the construction of a new arena, training facility or youth academy. For this purpose, they can fall back on various internal and external funding instruments. These are presented and discussed in this chapter with their specific characteristics and their advantages as well as disadvantages in the light of other funding instruments.