It is no longer news that Atletico Madrid won the 2020-2021 La Liga title in style, leaving behind the usual suspects, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. But the question is, what is La Liga prize money for the 2020-2021 season?
Towards the end of this season, it was reported that the sharing method in La Liga doesn’t give automatic room for the winner of the league title to earn the highest amount of the revenue generated for that season. Hence, the La Liga prize money is not fixed.
For instance, if Real Madrid win the league, the prize money the club would earn might be higher than what Villarreal would earn if they win the league. This is so because of the parameters that are used to share the revenue among clubs in the league.
In previous seasons, most of the revenues generated in La Liga were shared among the top clubs, and the rest were given to the lower clubs. This practice caused a lot of agitation by the lower clubs until the league body came up with a system that ensured that the earnings of the lower clubs increased.
Based on the new format, all the 20 clubs that participate in a La Liga season tend to earn good money from broadcast rights and other sources of revenue.
❤️🤍 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐉𝐄 𝐘 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐙𝐎́𝐍 ❤️🤍
— LALIGA CHAMPIONS 🔴⚪️🏆 (@atletienglish) May 24, 2021
🏆 LaLiga 20/21 champions!
🔴⚪ #AúpaAtleti | @EASPORTSFIFA pic.twitter.com/rI0beqGM6i
Below is the breakdown of how the La Liga prize money is distributed; the prize money for this season is mostly generated from broadcast rights and sponsorship deals:
The first thing La Liga does at the end of every season is to cut out 10 percent of the total La Liga prize money. The 10 percent is given to clubs in division two in Spain to encourage the clubs to keep developing young football talents.
The remaining La Liga prize money is divided into equal share, merit share, and resource generation. Under equal share, 50 percent of the remaining La Liga prize money is shared equally to all the 20 clubs in La Liga.
Afterward, 25 percent of the prize money left is shared using the positions of the clubs in the last 5 years as a yardstick. This is categorized as merit distribution. Clubs that have a bigger fan base, and command more viewership tend to earn more under this category.
While the remaining 25 percent is shared based on the resources generation capacity of each club in La Liga.
Based on these three perimeters, even though FC Barcelona finished 3rd on the league table this season, the club still had more cut from the La Liga prize money than other clubs.
The winners of this season La Liga title, Atletico Madrid are third on the revenue distribution table with €115 million. While Real Madrid that finished second on the league table this season took the second biggest cut of €154 million. While FC Barcelona sat at the top of the distribution table with €158 million.
Below is the full table showing how the prize money derived mostly from broadcast rights is distributed in 2021
| Rank | Club | Prize money |
| 1 | Barcelona | €158 million |
| 2 | Real Madrid | €154 million |
| 3 | Atletico Madrid | €115 million |
| 4 | Sevilla FC | €85 million |
| 5 | Getafe | €80 million |
| 6 | Villareal | €77 million |
| 7 | Real Sociedad | €73 million |
| 8 | Valencia | €73 million |
| 9 | Granada | €66 million |
| 10 | Athletic Club | €65 million |
| 11 | Levante | €63 million |
| 12 | Osasuna | €60 million |
| 13 | Alaves | €57 million |
| 14 | Real Betis | €55 million |
| 15 | Valladolid | €54 million |
| 16 | Celta Vigo | €52.5 million |
| 17 | Eibar | €52.5 million |
| 18 | RCD Mallorca | €50 million |
| 19 | Leganes | €50 million |
| 20 | Espanyol | €48.5 million |
