Want to beat the recession? Buy a soccer club
And we don’t really mean Moroka Swallows either. On Tuesday, Deloitte's Sports Business Group came out with a report that since the beginning of the season the Champions League was 5% higher than a year ago and England's Premier League matches remain 90% full. Soccer, being a recession-beating business, actually makes sense: most of the seats are subscription based and chronically over-subscribed, while recession fears have driven players’ demands on transfer fees and salaries down (Real Madrid excluded, of course). Even as the recession puts the boot into world business, Liverpool landed a new shirt-sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered valued at $127 million over four years, while Arsenal, thanks to Arsene Venger’s “buy low, sell high” policy made a profit of $71 million, 25% better than last year.
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