sustainability Article The Importance of Club Revenues for Player Salaries and Transfer Expenses—How Does the Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID-19) Impact the English Premier League? Tommy Quansah 1 , Bernd Frick 2 , Markus Lang 1,* and Kieran Maguire 3 1 Institute of Sport Sciences, University of Lausanne, Bâtiment Synathlon, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland;
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[email protected] Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption in the sports industry and has raised the question of whether the football industry is based on a sustainable business model. Using data from the English Premier League (EPL), we develop a regression model to achieve two objectives. First, we examine the relationship between the different revenue sources (TV revenues, match revenues, and commercial revenues) and the main cost drivers of professional football clubs Citation: Quansah, T.; Frick, B.; Lang, (player salaries and transfer expenses). Second, we seek to predict the likely impact of a major market M.; Maguire, K. The Importance of downturn such as the COVID-19 pandemic in the EPL. Our results suggest that TV revenues are by Club Revenues for Player Salaries and far the most important source of income for player salaries and market values, followed by match Transfer Expenses—How Does the revenues and commercial revenues. We predict that player salaries, market values, and transfer Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID-19) Impact the English Premier expenses will all decrease in the forthcoming EPL season, 2020/2021.