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The paper is an attempt of answering the question what should business and financial information contain in case of Polish sports clubs and their activities determined by their business model. In the paper there were employed data from Polish sports clubs that have been chosen as research objects in order to analyse and describe business model. Moreover, the research was based on non-standardized interviews with managers to answer the problem what is understood by the term of success of a sports club and what this success comprises of. A proposition of solution basing on the conducted research is offered, which allows to supplement the classic methods of evaluating company performance with a method of evaluating the profitability of social activities in the field of sport. So that the authors propose to elaborate a method which should include deep economic analysis: SROSI (Social Return on Sport Investment).

Introduction. Existing research on football economics mostly focuses on some key performance indicators’ influence on the profitability of clubs. This assumption is a bit misleading in the context of football business models which deliver various benefits other than profits to its stakeholders. In this research, the opposite question was asked: what can determine the intangible value delivered by a football business? This is asked in light of the fact that most of the value created by the football industry belongs to the category of intellectual capital.Material and Methods. The study was based on the financial data of 33 European football clubs. Basic statistical analysis was carried out and regression analysis of chosen drivers influencing intellectual capital of football clubs in Europe was performed.Results. Three of the four assumed hypotheses were not confirmed: higher value of intellectual capital is correlated with higher profitability, higher values of IC efficiency (VAIC) are associated with higher levels of player value and values of IC efficiency (VAIC) are significantly associated with levels of sports performance. Just one hypothesis was confirmed that values of IC efficiency (VAIC) are significantly associated with salary efficiency (S/R). Additionally, the study revealed that there are two important factors influencing the value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC): debt and salaries.Conclusions. If we assume that VAIC is the goal of the managers, then the only two drivers which are significant for this value are salary ratio and leverage ratio. Moreover, we know that profit orientation of the football business in Europe is not the key goal in order to develop intangible values for the stakeholders.

Introduction. The insolvency in football was explained by the underperformance of a football club, either in terms of its ability to achieve playing results which depends on the quality of players on the staff, or in terms of its ability to generate a level of revenue consistent with performance in the league. Hence, two questions were addressed in the study: how deep will the European football crisis be after 2020 and are payrolls the most sensitive factor of football business performance?Material and Methods. The study was based on the European football clubs data derived from the annual financial statement. A descriptive statistics analysis was performed in order to find out how significant salary indicators are in comparison to other football clubs’ performance measures. In order to establish the scale of changes in football finance in 2020, a basic stress test analysis was implemented.Results. The study established that salary to revenue indicator is one of the most significant for football clubs’ performance. Thus, as the first step, the analysis of revenue reduction was elaborated and in the second step, the analysis of the reduction of salaries was performed. The presented stress test scenario implied that the situation of European football would change dramatically under the assumption of 50% reduction of the annual revenue.Conclusions. The study established that the football clubs’situation is too serious not to be carefully managed due to cost and revenue performance.

PurposeThe presented study aims to identify and classify the value factors that influence the value of football clubs from the stakeholder perspective, while also discussing how these factors can affect the choice of valuation methods. The paper considers how value should be measured from the perspective of stakeholders. Research focuses on clubs embedded deeply in a wide interrelated network of stakeholders.Design/methodology/approachA mixed research approach was established in order to obtain a more holistic understanding of value creation, value factors and measurement. The research builds on observational study with a mix of retrospective longitudinal study of Polish men's football clubs and interviews with stakeholders, which are then triangulated as part of a critical discussion on valuation methods.FindingsThe results show the most significant value factors determined by the stakeholders. The study discusses which performance and value measures should be used to measure value for the stakeholders of football clubs. Intellectual capital methods and asset-based methods should definitely be relied on as part of measuring the performance of football clubs within the stakeholders' network. All findings suggest the use of the multivariate valuation method in accordance with previous research.Originality/valueThe classified key value factors enable the management of football clubs to properly manage stakeholder relationships and address various stakeholders' concerns in a sustainable way. The paper proposes a research process, which may also be implemented in other studies in the non-profit sector and contributes to the literature in the fields of sports management.