FC Barcelona set to become the first billion dollar club in football

Spanish football giant FC Barcelona has generated a whopping $959.3 million revenue between 2018 and 2019. In the process, Barca emerged as football's biggest cash-generating club, according to a newly published report.

Deloitte's 2020 Football Money League ranked the world's wealthiest football clubs based on their revenues during the 2018-2019 season.

Barcelona overtook rivals Real Madrid in the list. Real raked in $864 million during that period. The revenue gap between the Clasico rivals is more than $95 million, which is the highest in the last 23 years.

Barcelona's revenues shot up from only $823 million during the previous year. In comparison, Real Madrid's total has fallen from the top spot with $896 million in 2017-18.

This is the first time that any football club has crossed the $900 million mark, according to CNBC.

Manchester United, Bayern Munich, and Paris Saint-Germain were the other clubs to make it into the top five. According to that report, the top five richest clubs collectively generated more revenue as compared to the combined efforts of the 11 clubs ranked between 10th and 20th place.

Researchers have found that the top 20 wealthiest clubs had generated a total revenue worth $10.6 billion throughout the last season. This figure is reportedly the highest combined total ever.

Broadcasting rights remained the largest revenue stream for these clubs, as it generated 44% of the total earnings during the season. On the other hand, 40% of the revenues were generated from commercial deals and 16% came from matchday sales.

It has also been noticed that the top clubs seemed to be far less reliant on broadcasting rights revenue as compared to smaller teams. FC Barcelona's spectacular revenue increase can largely be attributed to its overhauled operations. This is mainly because the club decided to bring licensing and merchandising activities in-house.

In a press release, Dan Jones, a partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said, "Barca is a clear example of a club adapting to changing market conditions, reducing the reliance on broadcast revenue and focussing on growing revenues within its control. With the club expecting further growth in commercial revenues, we expect them to retain the top spot in next year's edition, and Barca is on course to be the first $1 billion Money League club in years to come."