We have an inherent understanding of the disruptive forces reshaping the football industry. COVID-19 has not only amplified some weaknesses but has also been an accelerator for new solutions. The disruption caused by the pandemic has been a good time to rethink the conventional football commercial models and to redefine the core business.

The Austrian Bundesliga appointed us to help them assess the impact of COVID-19 on the football industry. They wanted to focus on not only the short-term effects on the football eco system due to the pandemic but also to start devising the medium and long-term impact on the “established” football model.

A significant risk assessment and risk profile was completed for OFB Bundesliga. Specifically, we concentrated our analytical skills on the following fundamental areas:

• Immediate Revenue impact: costs involved for clubs staging matches behind closed doors, managing costs, managing sponsors and supplier obligations without generating matchday revenue.
• Significant Indirect Revenue impact: staging matches with reduced capacity and activity levels, combined with an overall economic slowdown. This effect was highly individualised by club and country based on their respective business models.
• Moderate Direct impact: UEFA’s financial distribution pool was also built on the TV & sponsorship/commercial revenue streams, so short/medium and long term impact would be a factor for many clubs (depending on UEFA’s contracted terms)

The Austrian football economy was significantly exposed and affected by the impact of COVID-19. The difference between the impact in Austria and in Europe in general could be explained by the fact that the country’s revenue mix has a very large proportion skewed to sponsorship and commercial activities and a lower proportion of media rights.

In the case of the Austrian Bundesliga, it means that its clubs could be impacted slightly more than the continent-wide baseline due to the closed-door approach, and significantly less than the baseline in case of a decision to postpone or cancel fixtures altogether.

Our findings presented to the Top Executives of the OFB Bundesliga:

• Comprehensive assessment of the short-medium-long term effects allowing them in the great period of uncertainty and a prediction on DACH clubs in Spring 2020
• Our model to estimate loss of revenue in March 2020 proved to show a precise prediction: In May 2020, Manchester United FC reported a £28m (€31.1m) loss for the month of March - our calculation was £29.68m (€33m). FC Barcelona was reporting €200m, we calculated €184.5m and our calculation for Paris Saint-Germain would have an estimated loss of around €135m since Ligue 1 stopped until the end of June, while the club announced €170m.

Money plays an ever more important role in professional sport these days. Many professional football clubs are still owned by the State. On the one hand, it gives the clubs a sense of stability, but it does not allow them to fully develop their potential and to challenge their opponents sufficiently in European competitions.

The representatives of the local city council were looking for an investor who would acquire a part of the city council’s shares of the local football club. For this purpose, we were asked to prepare an offer and to help search for the right investor.

• We created an advanced information brochure about the club
• We conducted talks with potential investors for generating and garnering interest
• We established a series of vetted, confidential, and viable introductions for potential investors and clubs and facilitated the preliminary discussions
• We believe in the growth of the beautiful game, locally, globally and sustainably and we are proud to play our part in its evolution – locally and globally.

Football clubs are all part of a complex system which, like every other business, use different types of technology in day-to-day operations. Each department of the club, from sports to accountancy, is using different technology solutions to reach a higher level of sports results, fan engagement, marketing, operations. But, to boost all areas of club activities, the different types of technology being used need to be aligned.

A football club participating in European competitions requested us to provide input on key technological matters and specifically how they could optimise technology across all areas of the club.

Through several working sessions and audits, we offered counsel and tailored recommendations on best practices, technical efficiencies, and all stages of optimisation processes - from gathering requirements to end user adoption and integration.

A key focus of our approach was to create data and technological policies within the club which provide strong support in all areas of club operations – sport, commercial, operations, governance.

• Meetings with the Executive Group providing tailor-made analysis and proposals on technological optimisation and creating data synergies.
• Building roadmaps to increase presence on the various SoMe.
• By connecting the dots and layering the detail, we helped clubs manage major operational changes in the most efficient way possible.

Even though the entire world has lived through the story and timeline of the Coronavirus pandemic by now, in the world of football it could easily be assumed that European football has been the most heavily impacted by the pandemic crisis due to its size and impact. However, the effect of the Covid-19 crisis covers the football economy in its entirety.

By gathering all the individual responses at continental, regional and national level for the six publications on Covid Mitigation and Resilience, we began to see how complex the different environments were. The complexity shaped the status of the domestic and international game for all stakeholders in their pandemic response. Our initial publication was on the Financial First Response, Mitigation and Contingency in #Issue1, closely followed by the second issue focused on Football Department Crisis Management in #Issue2. #Issue3 focused on Governance, Decision Making & the Football Economy, #Issue 4 took a closer look at Resilience and Mitigation in Women’s Football specifically, while #Issue5 was dedicated to Resilience and Impact on Community: Is football without fans really nothing? Concluding with #Issue6; a comprehensive overview of the Covid-19 impact assessing the Resilience and Impact on Global Football

#Issue 1 Financial First Response, Mitigation and Contingency, March 2020

#Issue 2 Football Department Crisis Management, April 2020

#Issue 3 Governance, Decision Making & Football Economy, May 2020

#Issue 4 Resilience and Mitigation in Women’s Football, May 2020

#Issue 5 Resilience and Impact on Community: Is football without fans really nothing?, August 2020

#Issue 6 Resilience and Impact on Global Football

Every football club, to improve its game and be successful at both national and international level, uses a plethora of statistics in the analysis of team performance and the individual abilities of players.

We are enlisted by a professional club to help them evaluate their own performance data analytics and create a new, more robust measurement model going forward.

Using advanced statistics, new methodologies, and research, we created a brand-new individual player profile for the club and used this model to benchmark across the general league and beyond. The comprehensive analytical breakdown also enabled the club to understand how they compared statistically to other European clubs on a number of key indicators not typically used in player development, squad profiling or asset evaluation.

• Based on the analyses, a report was prepared to help the club's management and the sport staff in more effective management. The use of this type of tool allows for better decision-making, enabling the team and the players to achieve sporting success.
• Ultimately, we provided a new tool for key personnel of the club to assess and evaluate their players performance and their market value, with predictive models embedded.
• The model and its analytics behind this project has been requested and adapted to other European clubs since its inception in Europe and will become a new metric in player trading moving forward. The club progressed 4 rounds in the UEFA club competitions.

Understanding the great contribution of clubs and provenance of players competing in the final tournament, it has proved to be an important exercise to analyse how many clubs and from what leagues players are being released for tournaments such as UEFA’s Euro competition.

This valuable exercise helps stakeholders understand the most represented leagues and which clubs are releasing the most players. We undertook the research and analysis one step further and assessed what the benefits and impacts are for these clubs fuelling the UEFA Euro stage.

We created a database of the 24 National Association squad lists participating in the tournament. We included factors such as: club, position, age, National Association of the club, confederation of the club, division of the club, and player value.

Our research and analysis show some concurrent trends and key insights for clubs, leagues, and federations to assess.

An example of the outcome of the result may be that most players competing in UEFA Euro 2020 play, on a regular basis, for clubs in England (146), Germany (91) and Italy (75)

As a result of our work in this space, we have been tasked to create a series of communications to display our findings to a wider audience.

• We created four infographics with statistics for social media platforms used by ECA’s communications team
• We delivered an Executive Summary with key findings to the ECA communications team
• We have held specialist talks with key clubs (on request) to deep dive into the results and impacts on them

An investor approached LTT Sports to help assess the value and potential of a football club.

Each investment of this type requires proper analysis, in order to accurately assess the value of the club, as well as the possible costs and development opportunities. In such a case, it is best to look at multiple examples over the course of several years.

Our work constituted analysing the financial statements, as well as using scientific methods for valuation of football club. Following a series of scientific disputes about the correct value of the club, there is a consensus today that the value of a club can only be determined in connection with the role of the valuer. For an actual or potential owner, the value of a club is the benefit that flows from it; and as a rule, so these are the expected revenues. This means that any actual value must ultimately be subjective, dependent on the person and situation.

Notwithstanding the fact that, therefore, it is not possible to determine the objective, (generally applicable value of the club); it is possible to determine independently of the entity the objectified value that values the club by taking into account the individual and subjective situation.

Additionally, we also analysed other factors that influence the value of the football club, like popularity among fans and social media.

Furthermore, in this task, it was very important to know the local environment and local regulations, which has a monumental influence on these types of transactions. It is also worth adding that we have analysed the potential of this club, and we have drawn out potential development paths.

Based on our analysis and the report prepared by us, we were able to provide appropriate arguments that turned out to be very useful in the negotiation process.

Thanks to our work, the investor was able to make the right decision based backed by data. Such practices guarantees greater success than decisions taken mainly on emotions.

Such a procedure allows to minimise the potential risk, and also enables faster preparation for the upcoming challenges by the new owner.